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they were ate there 



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I BETTY WALES 
| ON THE CAMPUS 

A STORY FOR GIRLS 


MARGARET WARDE 


AUTHOR OF 

BETTY WALES FRESHMAN 
BETTY WALES SOPHOMORE 
BETTY WALES JUNIOR 
BETTY WALES SENIOR 
BETTY WALES B. A. 

BETTY WALES & CO. 


ILLUSTRATED BY 
EVA M NAGEL, 


THE PENN 

PUBLISHING COMPANY 
PHILADELPHIA 





COPYRIGHT 
1910 BY 
THE PENN 
PUBLISHING 
COMPANY 






©Cl A 273 17 5 


Introduction 


Most of the girls in this story first became 
acquainted with each other in their freshman 
year at Harding College, and the story of 
their four jolly years together and their trip 
to Europe after graduation is told in “ Betty 
Wales, Freshman,” “ Betty Wales, Sopho- 
more, “Betty Wales, Junior/’ “Betty Wales, 
Senior,” and “ Betty Wales, B. A.” 

It was during this memorable trip that 
Betty met Mr. Morton, the irascible but gen- 
erous railroad magnate. “ Betty Wales & 
Co.” describes how Betty and her “ little 
friends ” opened the successful “ Tally-ho 
Tea-Shop ” in Harding, and what came of it. 
Babbie Hildreth’s engagement to Mr. Thayer 
was one result, and another was that Mr. 
Morton gave to Harding College the money 
for a dormitory for the poorer girls. Betty’s 
“ smallest sister ” Dorothy was also in Hard- 
ing attending Miss Dick’s school, and it was 
for her that Eugenia Ford invented the de- 
3 


4 


INTRODUCTION 


lightful Ploshkin. Somebody modeled one, 
and as little plaster ploshkins were soon being 
sold everywhere, it turned out to be one of 
the Tally-ho’s most popular and profitable 
features. Betty had thought she would leave 
the shop to Emily Davis and return to her 
family, but this story tells how she found her- 
self again on the Harding Campus. 


Contents 


I. “ Tending Up” Again ... 9 

II. Architect’s Plans — and Others . 29 

III. The Cult of the B. C. A.’s . . 47 

IV. The Grasshopper Wager . . 62 

V. Reinforcements .... 78 

VI. Frisky Fenton’s Martyrdom . . 98 

VII. The Doll Wave . . . .116 

VIII. More Architect’s Plans, and a Mys- 
tery . . . . . 140 

IX. Moving In 158 

X. Ghosts and Inspirations . . *174 

XI. What Christmas Really Means . 19 1 

XII. Rafael Proposes .... 213 

XIII. Genius Arrives .... 229 

XIV. As a Bull Pup Ordains . . . 249 

XV. A Game of Hide-and-seek — with 

“ Features ” 268 

XVI. The Mystery Deepens . . . 285 

XVII. The Mystery Solved . . . 299 

XVIII. Frisky Fenton’s Folly . . . 318 

XIX. Architect’s P'inal Plans — Consid- 
ered 337 


5 







* 










% 





















Illustrations 


PAGB 

They Were All There . . . Frontispiece 

“ I’m Sorry I Was Late ” . . . . n 

Sitting Down to Rest on a Baggage Truck . 84 

“You Must Take off Your Apron ” . . 160 

Just as They Had Given Her Up . . . 241 

The Others Stood Around Listening . .282 

“ We’ll Find ’em, Miss,” He Assured Her . 327 


Betty Wales on the Campus. 


7 





Betty Wales On The 
Campus 

CHAPTER I 

“ TENDING UP ” AGAIN 

Betty Wales, with a red bandanna knotted 
tightly over all her yellow curls — except one or 
two particularly rebellious ringlets that posi- 
tively refused to be hidden — pattered softly 
down the back stairs of the Wales cottage at 
Lakeside. Softly, because mother was taking 
her afternoon nap and must on no account be 
disturbed. Betty lifted a lid of the kitchen 
range, peered anxiously in at the glowing 
coals, and nodded approvingly at them for 
being so nice and red. Then she opened the 
ice-box, just for the supreme satisfaction of 
gazing once more upon the six big tomatoes 
that she had peeled and put away to cool 
right after lunch — which is the only proper 
time to begin getting dinner for a fastidious 
9 


IO 


BETTY WALES 


family like hers. Finally she slipped on over 
her bathing suit the raincoat that hung on 
her arm, and carefully opened the front door. 
On the piazza the Smallest Sister and a smaller 
friend were cozily ensconced in the hammock, 
“ talking secrets,” as they explained eagerly 
to Betty. 

“ But you can come and talk too,” they 
assured her in a happy chorus, for Betty was 
the idol of all the little girls in the Lakeside 
colony. 

Betty smiled at them and pulled back the 
raincoat to show what was underneath. 
“ Thank you, dears, but I’m going for a dip 
while the sun is hot. And Dorothy, don’t 
forget that you’ve said that you’d stay here 
and see to everything till I get back. And if 
more girls come up, don’t make a lot of noise 
and wake mother. Good-bye.” And she was 
off like the wind down the path to the beach 
staircase. 

Half a dozen welcoming shouts greeted her 
from the sand. 

“ We’ve waited ages for you,” cried one. 

“ Dare you to slide down on the rail,” 
called another. 



I M SORRY I WAS RATH 




























































ON THE CAMPUS 


1 1 

“ No, slide down the bank,” suggested a 
third. 

Betty gave her head a funny little toss, 
threw the raincoat down to one of them and 
slid, ran, jumped, and tumbled down the 
sheer bank, landing in a heap on a mound of 
soft sand that flew up in a dusty cloud around 
the party. 

“ I’m sorry,” she sputtered, wiping the dust 
out of her eyes. “ Sorry that I was late, I 
mean. The sand is Don’s fault, because he 
dared me. You see, I had to mend all Will’s 
stockings, because he’s going off to-morrow on 
a little business trip. And then I had to see 
to my fire, and remind Dorothy that she is 
now in charge of mother and the house. Beat 
you out to the raft, Mary.” 

Mary Hooper shook off her share of the 
sand-cloud resignedly. “ All right,” she 
said. “ Only of course I’ve been in once al- 
ready, and I’m rather tired.” 

“ Tired nothing,” scoffed one of the Benson 
girls. “ You paddled around the cove for five 
minutes an hour ago, poor thing ! That’s all 
the exercise you’ve had to-day. Betty’s the 
one who ought to be tired, with all the cook- 


12 


BETTY WALES 


ing and scrubbing and mending she does. 
Only she’s a regular young steam engine ” 

Betty leaned forward and tumbled Sallie 
Benson over on her back in the sand. 
“ Hush ! ” she said. “ I don’t work hard, and 
I’m not tired, and besides, I shall probably 
lose the race. Come along, Mary.” 

The race was a tie, but Betty declared that 
Tom Benson got in her way on purpose, and 
Mary Hooper retorted that Sally splashed her 
like a whole school of porpoises. So they 
finally agreed to try again going back, and 
then they sat on the raft in the sunshine, 
throwing sticks for Mary’s setter to swim after, 
and watching the Ames boys dive, until Will 
appeared on the shore shouting and waving a 
letter wildly — an incentive to Betty’s getting 
back in a hurry that caused Mary to declare 
the return race off also, especially as she had 
lost it. 

“ Didn’t want to bother you,” explained 
Will amiably, “ but Cousin Joe drove me out 
in his car, and I thought that maybe the 
chief cook ” 

Betty seized the letter and ran. “ I knew 
things were going to happen,” she murmured 


ON THE CAMPUS 


*3 


as she flopped up the beach stairway. “ But 
there’s an extra tomato that my prophetic 
soul told me to peel, and lots of soup, and lots 
of ice-cream. Oh, dear, I’m getting this letter 
so wet that I shan’t ever be able to read it.” 
She held it out at arm’s length and looked at 
the address. It was typewritten, and there 
was a printed “ Return to Harding College ” 
in the corner. “ Nothing but an old circular, 
I suppose,” she decided, and laid it carefully 
down in a spot of yellow sunshine on the floor 
of her room to dry off. 

Of course there was no time to open it until 
dinner was cooked and eaten ; and then Cousin 
Joe piled his big car full of laughing, chatter- 
ing young people and drove them off through 
the pine woods in the moonlight. 

Betty was in front with Cousin Joe. 
“ Things look so much more enchanted and 
fairylike if you’re in front,” she explained as 
she climbed in. 

Cousin Joe chuckled. “ You always have 
some good reason for wanting to sit in front, 
young lady,” he said. “ When you were a 
kid, you had to be where you could cluck to 
the horses. But I certainly didn’t suppose 


BETTY WALES 


i4 

you went in for moonlight and fairies and 
that sort of thing. I thought you were a 
hard-headed business woman, with all kinds 
of remarkable money-making schemes up 
your sleeves.” 

Betty patted the embroidery on her cuff 
and frowned disapprovingly at him. “ You 
shouldn’t make fun of the Tally-ho Tea-Shop, 
Cousin Joe. It does make money — really 
and truly it does.” 

“ Well, I guess I know that,” Cousin Joe 
assured her solemnly, “ and I understand the 
extremely marketable nature of ploshkins. 
Will keeps me very well posted about his 
wonderful sister’s wonderful enterprises that 
are backed by the Morton millions.” 

“ Don’t be silly, please, Cousin Joe,” begged 
Betty. “I’ve just done what any girl would 
have under the circumstances, and I’ve had 
such very scrumptious luck — that’s all.” 

Cousin Joe put on slow speed, and leaned 
forward to stare at Betty in the moonlight. 
“ You’ve pulled off a start that any man 
might envy you, little girl, and you’re just as 
pretty and young and jolly as if you’d never 
touched money except to spend it for clothes 


ON THE CAMPUS 


15 


and candy. And you still love fun and look 
out for fairies, and some day a nice young 
man — I say, Betty, here’s a long straight 
stretch. Change seats and see how fast 
you can tool her up to the Pine Grove 
Country Club for a cool little supper all 
around.” 

“ Oh, could I truly try ? ” 

Betty’s voice sounded like a happy child’s, 
and her eyes sparkled with pleasure and ex- 
citement, as her small hands clutched the big 
wheel. 

Cousin Joe leaned back and watched her. 
“ I had a tough pull when I started out in 
life,” he was thinking, “ and no 1 such very 
scrumptious luck,’ either, and I let it sour me. 
Betty’s game, luck or no luck. Luck’s not 
the word for it, anyway. Of course people 
want to keep friends with the girl who owns 
that smile. It means something, her smile 
does. It’s not in the same class with Miss 
Mary Hooper’s society smirk. I can’t see 
myself why that nice young man that I 
almost said was going to fall in love with her 
some day doesn’t come along — several of him 
in fact. But I’m glad I didn’t finish that 


i6 


BETTY WALES 


sentence ; I suppose you could spoil even 
Betty Wales.’ 7 

Betty remembered her letter again when 
she stepped on it in the dark and it crackled. 
She had undressed by moonlight, so as not to 
wake little Dorothy, who shared her room at 
the cottage. Now she lit a candle, and open- 
ing her letter read it in the dim flickering 
light. Something dropped out — a long slip 
that proved, upon further examination, to be 
a railroad ticket from Cleveland to Harding 
and back again. And the typewritten letter 
— that might have been “ only an old circular ” 
— was signed by no less a personage than the 
President of Harding College himself. Seeing 
his name at the end, in the queer scraggly 
hand that every Harding girl knew, quite 
took Betty’s breath away, and as for the letter 
itself! When she had finished it Betty blew 
out the candle and sank down in an awe- 
stricken little heap on the floor by the window 
to think things over and straighten them out. 

Prexy had written to her himself — the great 
Prexy ! He wanted her to come and advise 
with him and Mr. Morton and the architects 
about the finishing touches for Morton Hall. 


ON THE CAMPUS 


1 7 

Of all absurd, unaccountable ideas that was the 
queerest. 

“ Mr. Morton originally suggested asking 
you/' he wrote, “ but I heartily second him. 
We both feel sure that the ingenuity of the 
young woman who made the Tally-ho Tea- 
Shop out of a barn will devise some valuable 
features for the new dormitory, thereby fitting 
it more completely to the needs of its future 
occupants.” 

Morton Hall was the result of a sugges- 
tion Betty had made to her friend Mr. Mor- 
ton, the millionaire. It was to give the poorer 
girls at Harding an opportunity to live on the 
campus and share in the college life. 

“ Gracious ! ” sighed Betty. “ He thinks I 
thought up all the tea-room features. It’s 
Madeline that they want. But Madeline’s in 
Maine with the Enderbys, and wouldn’t come. 
And then of course Mr. Morton may need to 
be pacified about something. I can do that 
part all right. Anyway, I shall have to go, 
so long as they have sent a ticket — right away 
too, or Mr. Morton will be sure to need pacify- 
ing most awfully. I wonder what in the 
world that postscript means.” 


i8 


BETTT WALES 


The postscript said, “ I had intended to 
write you in regard to another matter, con- 
nected not so much with the architecture of 
the new hall as with its management ; but 
talking it over together will be much more 
satisfactory.” 

Betty lay awake a long while wondering 
about that postscript. When she finally went 
to sleep she dreamed that Prexy had hired her 
to cook for Morton Hall, and that she scorched 
the ice-cream, put salt in the jelly-roll, and 
water on the fire. She burned her fingers 
doing that and screamed, and it was Will 
calling to remind her that he wanted break- 
fast and his bag packed in time for the eight- 
sixteen. 

At the breakfast table the cook — she ate 
with the family — gave notice. She was going 
away that very afternoon. 

“ Most unbusinesslike,” Mr. Wales assured 
her solemnly, but with a twinkle in his eyes. 

“ Most absurd,” Betty twinkled back at him. 
“ I can’t suggest a thing to those architects, 
of course, and they’ll just laugh at me, and 
Prexy and Mr. Morton will be perfectly dis- 
gusted.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


l 9 


“ You’ve got to make good somehow,” Will 
assured her soberly. “ It isn’t every girl that 
gets her expenses paid for a long trip like that, 
just to go and advise about things. You’re 
what they call a consulting expert, Betty. 
I’ll look up your trains and telephone you 
from town.” 

“ And I’ll help you pack a bag,” announced 
the Smallest Sister. “ You’re just going in a 
bag, like Will, and coming back for Sunday, 
aren’t you, Betty dear?” 

“ Yes, I’m just going in a bag,” Betty as- 
sured her laughingly, “ and coming right back 
to Lakeside for Sunday. But perhaps in 
September — well, we need not think about 
September when it’s only the middle of 
August ; isn’t that so, little sister ? ” 

The Smallest Sister stared solemnly at her. 
“ We ought to make plans, Betty. Now 
Celissa Hooper wants me to be her chum if 
I’m going to school in Cleveland this winter, 
but if I’m going to be at Miss Dick’s again 
why of course I can’t be chums with Celissa, 
’cause I’m chums with Shirley Ware. So I 
really ought to know before long who I’m to 
be chums with.” 


20 


BETTY WALES 


“ You certainly ought,” agreed Betty ear- 
nestly. “ But you’ll just have to be very good 
friends with Celissa and with Shirley and with 
all the other girls until I come back, and then 
mother and father and you and I can have a 
grand pow-pow over you and me and the tea- 
shop and Miss Dick’s and everything else 
under the sun. Now, who’s going to wipe 
dishes for me this morning ? ” 

“ I am. What’s a grand pow-wow ? ” 

“ We’ll have one in the kitchen,” Betty ex- 
plained diplomatically, hurrying off with both 
hands full of dishes. 

But the pow-wow was a rather spiritless 
affair. 

“ You’re thinking of something else, Betty 
Wales,” declared the Smallest Sister accus- 
ingly, right in the midst of the story of the 
Reckless Ritherum, who is second cousin to 
the Ploshkin and has a very nice tale of its 
own. “ If you’re going to look way off over 
my head and think of something else, I guess 
I’d rather go up-stairs and make beds all by 
my lonesome.” 

“ I’m sorry, dearie,” Betty apologized 
humbly, “ but you see I feel just like a reck- 


ON THE CAMPUS 


21 


less ritherum myself this morning — going 
out to play with three terrible giants.” 

“ What giants are you going to play with ? ” 
demanded the Smallest Sister incredulously. 

“The fierce giant, the wise giant, and the 
head of all the giants,” Betty told her. “ The 
fierce giant eats reckless little ritherums for 
his breakfast — that’s Mr. Morton. The wise 
giant laughs at them when they try to show 
him how to make the house that Jack built — 
that’s the New York architect. The head of 
all the giants — that’s Prexy — shakes the paw 
of the poor little Ritherum kindly, and asks 
it not to be so silly again as to try to play 
with giants, and it gets smaller and smaller 
and smaller ” 

“Just exactly like Alice in Wonderland,” 
put in the Smallest Sister excitedly. 

“ Until it runs home,” Betty concluded, 
“ to play with a little girl named Dorothy 
Wales, and then all of a sudden it gets big 
and happy and reckless again.” 

“ Then don’t be gone long,” advised 
Dorothy eagerly, “ because I’m always in a 
hurry to begin playing with you some more.” 

“ Thank you,” Betty bowed gravely. “ In 


22 


BETTY WALES 


that case I won’t let the fierce giant eat me, 
nor the wise giant blow me away with his big 
laugh, nor the head giant stare at me until I 
vanish, recklessness and all, into the Bay of 
the Ploshkin.” 

“ I’d fish you up, if you did fall into the 
bay,” Dorothy assured her, with a sudden hug 
that ended fatally for a coffee-cup she was 
wiping. 

“ But it was nicked anyway, so never mind,” 
Betty comforted her, “ and you’ve fished me 
up lots of times already, so I know you would 
again.” 

“ Why, I never ” began the Smallest 

Sister in amazement. 

“All right for you,” Betty threatened, put- 
ting away her pans with a great clatter. “ If 
you’ve stopped believing in fairies and if 
you’ve forgotten how you ever went to the 
Bay of the Ploshkin and fished up ritherums 
and did other interesting things, why should 
I waste my time telling you stories?” 

This terrible threat silenced the Smallest 
Sister, who therefore never found out how or 
when she had “fished up ” her sister. But 
on the way east Betty, still feeling very like 


ON THE CAMPUS 


2 3 


a ritherum, consoled herself by remembering 
first her own simile, and then Will’s “ Maybe 
I’m not proud to know you ! ” blurted out as 
he had put her on board her train. A little 
sister to hug one and a big brother to bestow 
foolishly unqualified admiration are just the 
very nicest things that a reckless ritherum 
can have. And who hasn’t felt like a reck- 
less ritherum some time or other ? 

Mr. Morton was pacing the station plat- 
form agitatedly when Betty’s train pulled in. 

“ Twenty-three minutes late, Miss B. A.,” he 
panted, rushing up to her. He had always 
called her that. It stood for Benevolent 
Adventurer, and some other things. Grasping 
her bag and her arm, he pulled her down the 
stairs to his big red touring car. “ The way 
these railroads are run is abominable — a dis- 
grace to the country, in my opinion. Now 
when I say I’ll get to a place at four p. m. — I 
mean it. And very likely I arrive at six by 
train — most unbusinesslike. Well, it’s not 
exactly your fault that idiots run our railroads, 
is it, Miss B. A. ? I thought of that without 
your telling me — give me a long credit mark 
for once. Well, I certainly am glad to see 


24 


BETTT WALES 


you, and to find you looking so brown and 
jolly. No bothers and worries these days, 
Miss B. A. ? ” 

“ Except the responsibility of having to 
think up enough good suggestions for Morton 
Hall to pay you for asking me to come and 
for taking the time to be here to meet me,” 
Betty told him laughingly. 

Mr. Morton snorted his indignation. “ That 
responsibility may worry you, but it doesn’t 
me — not one particle. Now, by the way, don’t 
be upset by any idiotic remarks of the young 
architect chap that has this job in charge. 
Whatever a person wants, he says you can’t 
have it — that seems to be his idea of doing 
business. Then after you’ve shown him that 
your idea of doing business is to do it or know 
the reason why, he sits down and figures the 
thing out in great shape. He’s a very smart 
young fellow, but he hates to give in. I 
presume that’s why Parsons and Cope put 
him on this job — they’ve done work for me 
before, and they know that I have ideas of my 
own and won’t be argued out of them except 
by a fellow who can convince me he really 
knows more about the job than I do. Just the 


ON THE CAMPUS 


25 


same, don’t you pay much attention to his 
obstruction game. Remember that you’re 
here because I want this dormitory to be the 
way you want it.” 

Betty promised just as the car drew up in 
front of the Tally-ho. “ Thought you’d like 
a cup of your own tea,” explained Mr. Morton, 
“ and a sight of your new electric fixtures, 
and so forth. Miss Davis is expecting you. 
Let’s see.” He consulted his watch, compar- 
ing it carefully with Betty’s and with the 
clock in the automobile, which aroused his 
intense irritation by being two minutes 
slow. “ It’s now three forty-one. I’ll be 
back in nineteen minutes. If I can find that 
architect chap, I’ll bring him along. He 
knows all the main features of the building 
better than I do, and he’s a pretty glib talker, 
so I guess we’ll let him take you over the 
place the first time.” 

Exactly nineteen minutes later, just as 
Betty and Emily Davis had “ begun to get 
ready to start to commence,” according to 
Emily’s favorite formula, the inspection of 
the tea-shop and the exchange of summer 
experiences, the big red car came snorting 


26 


BETTY WALES 


back and stopped with a jerk to let out a tall 
young man, who ran across the lawn and in 
at the Tally-ho’s hospitably opened door. 

“ Mr. Morton wishes to know if Miss 

Wales ” he began. Then he rushed up 

to Betty. “ By all that’s amazing, the great 
Miss Wales is the one I used to know I How 
are you, Betty ? ” 

“ Why, Jim Watson, where did you come 
from ? ” demanded Betty in amazement. 

Jim’s eyes twinkled. “ From the Morton 
Mercedes most recently, and until I get back 
to it with you I’m afraid we’d better defer 
further explanations.” 

Betty nodded. “ Only you must just meet 
Emily Davis — Miss Davis, Mr. Watson. She’s 
a friend of Eleanor’s too. And you must tell 
me one thing. Is the architect out there with 
Mr. Morton ? ” 

“No,” said Jim solemnly, “ he isn’t, natu- 
rally, since he’s in here with you. Architect 
Watson, with Parsons and Cope, at your serv- 
ice, Miss Wales.” 

“ Are you the real one — the one in charge? ” 
persisted Betty. “ You aren’t the one that 
won’t let Mr. Morton have his own way?” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


27 


“ I am that very one,” Jim assured her 
briskly, “ but there are some lengths to which 
I don’t go. So please come along to the car 
in a hurry, or I shall certainly be sent back to 
New York forthwith.” 

“ Gracious ! That would be perfectly dread- 
ful ! Good-bye, Emily.” Betty sped down 
the path at top speed, Jim after her. 

“ Did you stop to introduce yourself in 
detail, Watson ? ” inquired Mr. Morton irri- 
tably, opening the door of the tonneau. 

“ He didn’t have to introduce himself,” 
Betty put in breathlessly, “ but I made him 
stop to explain himself, and now I certainly 
shan’t worry about his objections and opinions, 
because I’ve known him for ages. Why, he’s 
Eleanor Watson’s brother Jim. You’ve heard 
Babe and me talk about Eleanor.” 

1 should say that I have,” cried Mr. 
Morton jubilantly. “ So you can manage her 
brother as nicely as you manage me, can you, 
Miss B. A. ? I knew you ought to come up 
and see to things. Hurry along a little, 
Jonas, can’t you? We’re not out riding for 
our health to-day. There are some little 
things I haven’t just liked, and now that I’ve 


28 


BETTT WALES 


got Miss B. A. to help me manage you 

Feeling scared, Watson ? ” 

“Not a bit, sir, thank you/' said Jim with 
his sunniest smile. “ But I’m certainly feeling 
glad to see Miss Betty again.” 

“What’s that? Glad to see Miss B. A.? 
Well, I should certainly hope so,” snapped 
Jasper J. Morton. “ I’d have a good deal less 
use for you, sir, than I’ve had so far, if you 
weren’t.” 


CHAPTER II 


ARCHITECT’S PLANS — AND OTHERS 

Stopping at Prexy’s house to get him to 
join the grand tour brought back Betty’s 
“ ritherum ” feeling very hard indeed. Jim 
was so dignified and businesslike when he 
talked to Prexy and Mr. Morton ; they were 
both so dignified and intent on their plans for 
Morton Hall. And evidently they all seri- 
ously expected Betty to do something about 
it. Betty set her lips, twisted her handker- 
chief into a hard little knot, and walked up 
to the door, resolved to do the something ex- 
pected of her or die in the attempt. 

Jim, who was ahead, had the door open for 
the others when Mr. Morton commanded a 
halt. 

“ Might as well be systematic,” he ordered, 
“ and take things as they come, — or as we 
come, rather. Now, Miss B. A., shall there or 
shan’t there be a ploshkin put up over this 
front door ? ” 


29 


3 ° 


BETTT WALES 


u A ploshkin over the front door ? ” Betty 
repeated helplessly. 

“ Exactly,” snapped Mr. Morton, who dis- 
liked repetition as much as he disliked other 
kinds of delay. “ What could be more ap- 
propriate than a large ploshkin, cut in marble, 
of course, by a first-class sculptor ? Stands for 
you, stands for earning a living when you 
have to, therefore stands for me and my 
methods, stands for our cooperation in putting 
through a good thing, whether it’s a silly 
plaster flub-dub that half-witted people will 
run to buy, or a building like this with a big 
idea back of it. But Mr. President here seems 
to think I’m wrong in some way, and young 
Watson says a ploshkin won’t harmonize with 
the general style of the architecture. Now 
what do you say, Miss B. A. ? ” 

Betty suppressed a wild desire to laugh, as 
she looked from one to another of her three 
Giants’ faces. “ Please don’t be disappointed, 
Mr. Morton,” she began at last timidly, “ but 
I’m afraid I think you’re wrong too. A 
ploshkin — why, a ploshkin’s just nonsense ! 
It would look ridiculous to stick one up 
there.” She laughed in spite of herself at the 


ON THE CAMPUS 


3 1 

idea. “ It’s 19 — ’s class animal, you know. 
The Belden might as well have a purple cow, 
and the Westcott a yellow chick, and some 
other house a raging lion to commemorate the 
other class animals. Oh, Mr. Morton, you are 
just too comical about some things 1 ” 

Mr. Morton frowned fiercely, and then 
sighed resignedly. “ Very well, Miss B. A. 
It’s your ploshkin. If you say no, that settles 
it. Mr. President, you and young Watson can 
decide between that Greek goddess of wisdom 
you mentioned and any other outlandish 
notion you’ve thought of since. It’s all one 
to me. Now let’s be systematic. The next 
unsettled row that we have on hand is about 
the reception-room doors.” 

This time, fortunately, - ' Betty could agree 
with Mr. Morton, and the others yielded grace- 
fully, being much relieved at her first decision. 
Then, quite unexpectedly, she had an idea of 
her own. 

“ Laundry bills cost a lot, and the Harding 
wash-women tear your thin things dreadfully. 
It would be just splendid if there could be a 
place in the basement where the Morton Hall 
girls could go to wash and iron, and press 


32 BETTY WALES 

their skirts, and smooth out their thin 
dresses.” 

Everybody agreed to this ; the Giants for- 
got their differences and grew quite friendly 
discussing it. And up-stairs Betty thought of 
something else. 

“ Typewriters and sewing-machines are 
dreadfully noisy. That’s one reason why the 
cheap off-campus houses are so uncomfortable, 
where most of the girls use one or the other or 
both. I remember Emily Davis used to say 
that sometimes it seemed as if her head 
would burst with the click and the clatter. If 
there could only be a room for typewriters 
and a sewing-room, with sound-proof 
walls ” 

“ There can be,” interrupted Jasper J. Mor- 
ton oracularly, “ and there shall be, if we 
have to put an annex to accommodate them. 
Miss B. A., you’ll ruin me if you keep on at 
this rate. I presume I’m expected to install 
typewriters and sewing-machines. They’re 
part of the fixtures, aren’t they, Watson ? If 
I say so they are ? Well, I do say so, pro- 
vided Miss B. A. accepts that proposal 
from See here, Mr. President, why don’t 


ON THE CAMPUS 


33 

you take her off in a quiet corner and tell 
her what you want of her ? ” 

Betty blushed violently at the idea of giv- 
ing such summary advice to the great Prexy. 

“ Please don’t hurry,” she begged. “ You 
can tell me what you want to any time, Presi- 
dent Wallace. Mr. Morton is always in such 
a rush to get things settled himself ; he 
doesn’t realize that other people don’t feel the 
same way.” 

“ Don’t I realize it ? ” snorted Mr. Morton 
indignantly. “ Haven’t I spent half my life 
hunting for people that can keep my pace ? 
But I beg your pardon, Mr. President, if I 
seemed to dictate or to meddle in your personal 
affairs.” 

Prexy’s eyes twinkled. “ That’s all right, 
Mr. Morton. Let’s give him his way this 
time, Miss Wales, as long as we’ve got ours 
about the ploshkin. Come and sit on that 
broad and inviting window-seat, and hear 
what we want you to do for us.” 

It was an amazing proposal, though Prexy 
made it in the calmest and most matter-of-fact 
way. The Student’s Aid Association, it 
seemed, had reorganized at its commence- 


34 


BETTY WALES 


ment meeting, had received a substantial en- 
dowment fund — so much Betty already knew 
— and had since decided to employ a paid 
secretary to direct its work and to look after 
the interests of the self-supporting students. 
It had occurred to President Wallace that the 
right place for the secretary to live was in 
Morton Hall, and to the directors that the right 
person to act as secretary was Betty Wales. 

“ The salary is small,” explained Prexy, 
“ but the duties at first will be light, I should 
think. I assume that you will be in Harding 
in any case, to supervise your tea-shop enter- 
prise. Now this salary will pay several extra 
helpers there, and give you time for an occu- 
pation that may be more congenial and that 
will certainly be of real help to the girls you 
have always wanted to help — to the whole 
college also, I hope. Living in this hall in- 
stead of the regular house teacher, you will 
have a chance to keep in touch with us as you 
could not off the campus, and you will still 
be reasonably near to the famous Tally-ho 
Tea-Shop.” 

When he had finished, Betty continued to 
stare at him in bewildered silence. “ How 


ON THE CAMPUS 


35 

does it strike you, Miss Wales ? ” he asked, 
with an encouraging smile. 

Betty “ came to ” with a frightened little 
gasp. 

44 Why, I — I — it strikes me as too big to take 
in all at once, and much, much too splendid 
for me, President Wallace. I should just love 
to do it, of course. But I can’t imagine my- 
self doing it. Now Christy Mason or Emily 
or Rachel Morrison — I could imagine them 
doing it beautifully, but not me — I — me. 
Oh, dear ! ” Betty stopped in complete con- 
fusion. 

“ But the rest of us can easily imagine you 
as the first secretary of the Student’s Aid,” 
Prexy told her kindly. 44 We considered sev- 
eral others, but none of them quite fitted. 
We are all sure that you will fit. The board 
of directors wished you to understand that 
the choice was unanimous. As for me, I’ve 
always meant to get you on the Harding fac- 
ulty some way or other, because the Harding 
spirit is the most important thing that any of 
us has to teach, and you know how to teach it. 
This position will enable you to specialize on 
the Harding spirit without bothering your 


BETTY WALES 


36 

head about logarithms or the principles of ex- 
position or cuneiform inscriptions or Spanish 
verbs. It seems like a real opportunity, and 
I hope you can take it.” 

“ Oh, I hope so, too ! ” exclaimed Betty 
eagerly. “ But the trouble is, President Wal- 
lace, the world seems to be just crammed with 
opportunities, and they conflict. One that 
conflicts with this is the opportunity to stay 
at home with my family. I hadn’t decided, 
when I got your letter, whether I ought to 
come back to the tea-shop, or be with mother 
and father this winter. But living here and 
looking out for the Morton Hall girls does 
sound just splendid. Please, what would be 
the duties of the secretary, President Wal- 
lace?” 

The President smiled. “ Whatever you made 
them, I think. Perhaps the Student’s Aid 
directors may want to offer a few suggestions, 
but in the main I guarantee you a perfectly 
free hand.” 

“ Isn’t that even worse than to be told just 
what to do — harder, I mean ? ” demanded 
Betty, so despairingly that Prexy threw back 
his head and laughed. 


ON THE CAMPUS 


37 


11 Think it over,” he advised. “ Talk it 
over with Mr. Morton and your family. 
Write to your friends about it. By the way, 
I suppose you know that Miss Morrison 
and Miss Adams are to be members of our 
faculty next year.” 

Betty knew about Rachael’s appointment, 
but not about Helen’s. 

“ Oh, it would be great to be back,” she de- 
clared. “ There’s no question of what I want 
to do, — only of what I ought to do, and what 
I can do. It would be terrible if I should 
start and then have to give up because I 
didn’t know how to go on. It would be 
worse than being ‘ flunked out ’ — I mean than 
failing to pass your examinations,” added 
Betty hastily. 

“ I understand the expression * flunked 
out,’ ” Prexy assured her gaily, “ but I 
never noticed any of your kind of girl in 
the 1 flunked out’ ranks. Well, think it 
all over. Mr. Morton will dance with im- 
patience when he finds that everything 
can’t be decided in a breath, and just as 
he wants it, but we’ll let him dance a little ; 
and if he uses too persuasive powers on you 


BETTY WALES 


38 

in the meantime I should not be unwarrant- 
ably interfering if I objected.” 

“ He can’t object to you dictating in his 
private affairs a little,” quoted Betty gaily, 
as they went back to join the other Giants, 
who were sitting on a pile of lumber, ani- 
matedly discussing the relative merits of dif- 
ferent makes of typewriters. 

“ Sewing-machines we leave entirely to you, 
Miss B. A.,” Mr. Morton told her, with a 
keen glance that tried to guess at her recep- 
tion of Prexy’s offer. “Just let me know 
the kind you want and the number. No 
hurry.” 

“ That means that in about ten minutes 
he’ll ask you what you’ve decided,” mur- 
mured Jim in her ear. “ Haven’t you had 
enough of business for to-day, Betty? Let’s 
cut out and take a walk in Paradise before 
dinner. We can just about catch the sunset 
if we hurry. 

“ My eye, but it seems good to see you 
again,” Jim assured her warmly, as they 
scrambled down the path to the river. “ And 
it seems good to see Paradise again, only it 
doesn’t look natural in its present uninhab- 


ON THE CAMPUS 


39 

ited state. There ought to be a pretty girl 
in a pretty dress behind every big tree.” 

Betty demanded the latest news of Eleanor, 
who was a very bad correspondent, and then 
burst forth with her own plans and perplex- 
ities. 

“ I think you should accept the Harding 
offer by all means,” Jim assured her soberly. 
“ Only there’s one thing I ought to tell you. 
I’ve been trying for a week to screw my 
courage up to the point of confiding it to 
the peppery Mr. Morton. His beloved dor- 
mitory can’t possibly be finished in time for 
the opening of college.” 

Betty looked her dismay. 11 He’ll be per- 
fectly furious, Jim.” 

“ Can’t help it,” returned Jim firmly. “ He 
comes up nearly every week, and at least once 
in ten minutes, while he’s here, he decides to 
enlarge or rebuild something. See how he 
upset everything to-day for your sewing-ma- 
chines and typewriters and washing-machines. 
To-morrow some book-worm will get hold of 
him and suggest a library, and he’ll want us 
to design some patent bookcases and build a 
wing to put them in.” Jim looked Betty 


40 


BETTY WALES 


straight in the eyes. “ You simply can't 
hurry a good honest job. I'm likely to be 
hanging around here till Christmas." 

“ As long as that? " 

Jim nodded, still scrutinizing her face 
closely. “ Of course I know it won’t make 
any difference to you, but it would make all 
kinds of difference to me, having you here. 
You can be dead sure of that, Betty." 

Betty smiled at him encouragingly. “ You 
mean you want me to be here to protect you 
from the pretty girls in pretty gowns who will 
begin jumping out at you from behind the 
trees the day college opens ? " 

Jim shrugged his broad shoulders defiantly. 
“ I'm not afraid of any pretty girls. I sup- 
pose it will be a fierce game going around the 
campus with no other man in sight, but I 
guess I can play it." 

“ Oh, I see," murmured Betty, who was in 
a teasing mood. “ You want me to introduce 
you to the very prettiest pretty girls." 

“ Prexy can do that," Jim told her calmly. 
“ He's my firm friend since I stood by him so 
nobly in the war of the ploshkin. But I do 
hope you’ll be here. We could have some 


ON THE CAMPUS 


4i 

bully walks and rides, Betty — you ride, don’t 
you ? ” 

Betty nodded. “ But I shall be dreadfully 
busy — if I come.” 

“ I’ll help you work,” Jim offered gallantly. 
“ I understand this secretary proposition pretty 
well. I was secretary to the O. M. — Old Man, 
that stands for, otherwise the august head of 
our firm — until they put me on this little job. 
I could give you pointers, I’m sure, though 
it’s not exactly the same sort of thing you’re 
up against. And I say, Betty, Eleanor has 
half promised me to come on this fall while 
I’m here. I’m sure she’ll do it if you’re here 
too.” 

“ That would be splendid,” Betty admitted, 
“ only of course I couldn’t decide to come just 
for a lark, Jim. I mustn’t let that part of it 
influence me a bit.” 

“ Well, just the same ” — Jim played his last 
and highest card, — “ if you want to be a real 
philanthropist, Miss Betty Wales, you’ll let 
me influence you a little. If ever there was 
a good object for charity, it’s a fellow who 
hasn't seen any of his family for nine months 
and has had to give up a paltry two weeks’ 


42 


BETTY WALES 


vacation that he'd been counting the hours to, 
to hold down a job that may, in a dozen years 
or so, lead to something good. It takes stick, 
I can tell you, Betty, this making your way 
in the world, and sometimes it’s a pretty lone- 
some proposition. But I don’t intend to be 
just dad’s good-for-nothing son all my life, so 
I’m bound to keep at it. I hate a quitter just 
as much as dad does. I can tell you, though, 
it helps to have a good friend around to talk 
things over with.” 

Betty’s brown eyes grew big and soft, and 
her voice vibrated with sympathy. “ Don’t I 
know that, Jim ? Last year when Madeline 
and Babbie were both away at once it seemed 
as if things always went wrong at the Tally-ho, 
and I used to nearly die, worrying. And 
when they came back and we talked every- 
thing over, there was usually nothing much 
the matter.” 

“ Exactly,” agreed Jim. “ So don’t for- 
get me when you’re footing up the philan- 
thropic activities that you can amuse your- 
self with if you decide on a Harding 
winter.” 

Betty laughed. “ I won’t,” she promised 


ON THE CAMPUS 


43 

gaily, “ although you don't look a bit like an 
object of charity, Jim." 

“ Appearances are frequently deceitful," Jim 
assured her. 

“ I should think so." Betty jumped up in 
dismay. “ I appear to have the evening be- 
fore me, but really I’ve promised to take din- 
ner with Mr. Morton." 

“ Who-can’t-be-kept-waiting," chanted Jim, 
giving her a hand up the steep bank. 

Betty stayed in Harding two days, during 
which she had many long talks with Emily 
about the secretaryship and its possibilities. 
Being, as she picturesquely put it, a Morton 
Hall girl born too soon, Emily could speak 
from experience, and she suggested all sorts 
of things that Betty would never have 
thought of. 

“ But that’s all I can do," she told Betty, 
when that modest little person declared that 
Emily, and not she, was surely the ideal 
secretary. “ I can explain what ought to be 
done, but I couldn’t do it. It takes a person 
with bushels of tact to manage those girls. 
Maybe you aren’t as good at planning as 
Rachel or I. That’s nothing. You’ve got 


44 


BETTT WALES 


the bushels of tact. That's the unique 
quality that the directors had the sense to 
see was indispensable. You’re ‘ elected ’ to 
accept, Betty dear, so you might just as well 
telegraph for your trunks.” 

But Betty did nothing quite so summary. 
She wanted to talk things over with the 
family, who would be sorely disappointed, she 
knew, if she decided to come back to Harding, 
after she had hinted that perhaps the Tally-ho 
could go on with only flitting visits from its 
Head Manager. Besides, there was no use in 
losing the rest of August at Lakeside, and the 
Smallest Sister would grieve bitterly if the 
ritherum broke its promise to come home 
soon and play. Betty resolved to have 
Dorothy back again in Miss Dick’s school. 
There were lonely times and discouraged times 
ahead of her, she knew, and if a little sister 
is a responsibility, she is much more of a 
comfort. Mother would have Will and father, 
and if father went South again she would 
want to go too, so it wouldn’t be selfish to ask 
for Dorothy, if 

But in her secret soul, Betty knew that the 
“ if” was a very, very small one. Father and 


ON THE CAMPUS 


45 


mother would tell her to do what she felt was 
best, and she had no doubt about her final 
decision. She almost owed it to Mr. Morton 
to do anything she could toward making his 
splendid gift to Harding as useful as possible, 
and if Prexy and the directors and Emily 
were right she could do a great deal. 

“ And isn’t it splendid,” she reflected, “ that 
when I’ve got less money than ever I can do 
more? That .proves that money isn’t every- 
thing — it isn’t anything unless you are big 
enough to make it something. Oh, dear ! 
What if I shouldn’t 1 make good,’ as Will 
says ? Why, I’ve just got to f ” 

Betty set her lips again and walked down 
the platform of the Cleveland station with her 
head so high that she almost ran into Will, 
who had come to meet her. 

“Get along all right?” he demanded 
briskly. 

“ All right so far,” Betty told him, “ but 
there’s more ahead, and it’s fifty times bigger 
than anything I’ve tried before.” 

“ Of course,” Will took it placidly. “ No 
better jobs in this world without extra work. 
If it wasn’t a lot bigger thing than you’ve 


BETTT WALES 


46 

tackled before, it probably wouldn't be worth 
your while.” 

Betty sighed as she surveyed him admir- 
ingly. “ I suppose you’re right. I wish I 
were a man. They’re always so calm and 
cool. No, I don’t wish that either. I’m glad 
I’m a girl and can get just as excited as I like, 
and act what you call 1 all up in the air ’ once 
in a while. I don’t believe things are half so 
much fun when a person doesn’t get dread- 
fully excited about them. So now, Will 
Wales!” 


CHAPTER III 


THE CULT OF THE B. C. A.’S 

When Betty first unfolded what Will flip- 
pantly called the Morton-Prexy Proposition 
to the family circle, the “if” loomed very 
large indeed on mother’s face and larger still 
on Dorothy’s. 

It would be too much for Betty, mother said. 
“ And I don’t want my little girl to get tired 
and dragged-out and old before she has to. 
There was some reason in her trying to earn 
money in her own way last year, but now 
there isn’t the least sense in plunging into 
this project, just when the tea-shop is so 
nicely started and she has won the right to 
an easy time.” 

“But, mother dear,” Betty interposed, “an 
easy time isn’t the chief thing in life.” 

“ Not exactly a cause worth living for, is it, 
child?” laughed father. “And being cook 
to the Wales family in the intervals when 
they happen to have a kitchen never did seem 
to satisfy your lofty aspirations.” 

47 


4 8 


BETTY WALES 


“ Yes, it does, father/’ declared Betty soberly, 
“ but you’re going to board again this winter, 
so I can’t be cook much longer. It’s just a 
question of where I’m needed most. That 
sounds dreadfully conceited, but it really 
isn’t.” 

So father laughed, and said that he and 
mother would “ talk it over,” whereat Will 
winked wickedly at Betty in a way that 
meant, “ Everything’s settled your way, 
then,” and hustled her off to dress for a 
tennis match, in which the skill of the Wales 
family was to be pitted against that of the 
Bensons. And just as the Wales family had 
won two sets out of a hard-fought three, 
father was saying diplomatically to mother 
on the piazza, “ Well, dear, I think you’re 
right as usual ; we ought to let her go and try 
herself out. It’s not many parents whose 
daughters are sought for to fill positions of 
such trust and responsibility.” 

“ I hope she won’t have to learn to run a 
typewriter like a regular secretary,” sighed 
mother, who had never in the world meant to 
let herself be coaxed, by father’s adroit 
methods, into approving or even permitting 


ON THE CAMPUS 


49 


another of those “ dreadful modern depar- 
tures ” that her old-school training and con- 
servative temper united to disapprove. 

Father smiled at her indulgently. “ If 
girls learned to write a copper-plate hand 
nowadays as they did when you were young, 
we shouldn’t be so dependent on typewriters. 
Betty’s scrawl is no worse than the rest. 
Well, now that this matter is settled and off 
our minds, let’s walk out to the big bluff be- 
fore dark.” 

So the discussion was closed, the “if” 
dwindled to nothingness once more, and two 
weeks after Jim Watson had assisted Mr. Mor- 
ton to see Betty off in a fashion befitting that 
gentleman’s idea of her importance, he was at 
the Harding station to meet her — quite with- 
out assistance. 

“ Was I the last straw ? ” he inquired gaily, 
as they walked down the long platform 
toward Main Street. 

“ The last straw ? ” repeated Betty absently. 
She was wondering whether the Student’s Aid 
seniors would expect her to help meet the 
freshmen at their trains. 

“ Well, the last figure in the column that 


5 ° 


BETTT WALES 


you added up in order to estimate the possi- 
bilities of Harding as a mission field,” 
amended Jim. “ Because if I helped to turn 
the scales in favor of your coming here I can 
at last consider myself a useful member of 
society.” 

“ Now don’t be absurd, Jim,” Betty ordered 
sternly. “ Whatever else you do, I’m sure 
you’ll never succeed in being a brilliant ob- 
ject of charity.” 

“Unappreciated, as usual,” sighed Jim. 
“ Nevertheless I invite you to have an ice at 
Cuyler’s. It’s going to be very awkward, 
Betty — your being proprietress of the Tally- 
ho. I can never ask you to feed there.” 

“ But you can ask all the pretty girls I’m 
going to introduce you to,” Betty suggested, 
but Jim only shrugged his shoulders sceptic- 
ally. 

“ Pretty girls are all right,” he said, “ but I 
already know as many girls here as I can 
manage — or I shall when they all arrive. 
Don’t forget that I’m to help you meet Miss 
Helen Chase Adams to-night, and Miss Mor- 
rison to-morrow, and Miss Ayres whenever 
she telegraphs.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


5i 

“ You mustn’t neglect your work/* Betty 
warned him. 

“ Shan’t,” Jim assured her. “ I’ve merely 
arranged it so I can meet all Eleanor’s 
friends’ trains. There’s everything in ar- 
rangement. I generally begin my arduous 
duties at nine, but to-morrow seven o’clock 
shall see me up and at ’em — meaning the 
carpenters, bricklayers, plasterers, sewing- 
machine agents, and all the rest of my me- 
nials.” 

“ With all the extra men that Mr. Morton 
had sent up, can’t you possibly get through 
before Christmas ? ” demanded Betty eagerly. 

“ I can’t say yet,” Jim told her. “ Is it so 
long to wait for your sewing-machines and 
things?” 

“ Perfect ages ! ” 

Jim frowned. Betty didn’t mean to be un- 
kind, but any one else, he reflected sadly, 
would have considered the personal side of 
the matter. Betty was a jolly girl, but all 
she really cared for was this confounded 
philanthropic job — and her tea-shop, maybe. 
She expected a fellow to be the same — all 
wrapped up in his job. 


5 2 


BETTY WALES 


Madeline arrived, according to custom, ten 
minutes before her telegram, and swung 
up the Tally-ho steps to the lilting tune 
of her famous song, “ Back to the College 
Again.” 

“ Hello, Betty ! Hello, Emily ! Hello, 
Nora and Bridget ! I say, but isn’t this Im- 
proved Version of the Tally-ho almost too 
grand ? No, I didn’t write. I couldn’t ; I 
didn’t decide in time. I had a special article 
on fresh air children to write up for a friend 
of Dick’s, and a Woman’s Page for the 
* Leader,’ because the person who does it 
usually, known to Newspaper Row as Madam 
Bon Ton, has gone on a vacation to Atlantic 
City. But I sat up all last night out at Bob’s, 
listening to her merry tales and writing them 
down, and then pinching her awake to tell 
me more whenever I ran out of material. 
And I did the Woman’s Page on the train 
coming up here. We ought to have a real 
celebration for me after I’ve worked so hard 
as all that just to come.” 

“ You go ahead and plan one and we’ll 
have it,” Betty promised recklessly. 

Madeline nodded, and rushed on to some- 


ON THE CAMPUS 


S3 

thing else. “ Is Rachel really going to teach 
Zoo, and is Helen Chase Adams going to 
adorn the English department? Christy 
wrote me about her appointment for History. 
Why, Betty, there’ll be a regular Harding 
colony of the finest class this year. You 
round them all up for tea to-morrow, and I’ll 
have the celebration ready. Never fear about 
that ! ” 

“ You want Mary Brooks Hinsdale, of 
course,” Betty suggested. 

Madeline nodded. “ All the old bunch, but 
nobody who’s still in college. It’s to be 
strictly a B. C. A. party, tell them.” 

“ Madeline,” demanded Emily sternly, “ do 
you know what that stands for, or are you go- 
ing to think something up later? ” 

Madeline grinned placidly. “ Dearest girl, 
as Madam Bon Ton calls all her fair corre- 
spondents, never so far forget your breeding 
as to give way to idle curiosity. It tends to 
create wrinkles. And speaking of wrinkles, 
do you suppose Georgia will murder or other- 
wise dispose of her new roommate and take 
me in for the night?” 

They were all there the next afternoon. 


54 


BETTY WALES 


Little Helen Chase Adams was just as prim 
and demure as ever, but the great honor that 
had come to her had put a permanent sparkle 
in her eyes, and added a comical touch of 
confidence to her manner. Rachel's air of 
quiet dignity that the head of her depart- 
ment approved of only made the funny 
stories she told of her first experiences as a 
“ faculty ” all the funnier. Christy was her 
old, serene, dependable self. Mary, in a very 
becoming new suit, smiled her “ beamish ” 
smile at everybody, and argued violently with 
Madeline about the relative importance of be- 
ing a “ small ” faculty or a “ big ” faculty's 
wife. 

“ George Garrison Hinsdale is a genius, and 
he says he couldn't live without me," declared 
Mary modestly but firmly. Then she smiled 
again at the obvious humor of George Garri- 
son Hinsdale’s remark. “ Of course he did 
live without me until he discovered me." 

“ We couldn't live without you either, Mary 
dear," Rachel assured her. 

“ No indeed we couldn't, you Perfect Pa- 
tron," added Madeline. “ And that reminds 
me that if you don’t hustle around and do 


ON THE CAMPUS 


55 

something nice for the Tally-ho right away, 
you’ll be expelled from the society.” 

“ There’s no rule about how often you have 
to do things,” declared Mary indignantly, 
“ and anyway I can’t be expelled when I’m 
the only member. It’s too utterly absurd.” 

“ Is the Perfect Patrons a society ? ” de- 
manded Christy eagerly. “ Can’t we join ? 
It’s not limited to faculty’s wives, is it?” 

“ Rules for the Perfect Patron,” chanted 
Madeline impressively. “ Rule one : Only 
the prettiest and best-dressed faculty wife ex- 
isting at Harding is eligible. Rule two : In 
estimating Perfection patronizing the firm is 
counted against patronizing the menu. That’s 
where little Mary always meets her Water- 
loo.” 

“ I do not, and anyway those rules aren’t 
half so funny as the real ones that you made 
up first,” interpolated Mary sweetly. 

“ Well, I’ve forgotten the real ones. Any- 
way, we don’t need Perfect Patrons nowadays 
as much as we did when we were young and 
poor, instead of prosperous and almost too ele- 
gant. So suppose we attend to the organi- 
zation of the B. C. A.’s.” 


BETTY WALES 


5 6 

“ Is that a society, too ? ” demanded Helen 
the practical. 

“ No, it’s a cult,” explained Madeline 
curtly. 

“ What's a cult ? ” 

“ What does it stand for ? ” 

We're all ‘ Merry Hearts.' What's the 
use of any more clubs ? ” 

Madeline met the avalanche of questions 
calmly. 

“ A cult is a highly exclusive club — noth- 
ing vulgar and common about a cult, like the 
Perfect Patrons' Society, with its crowded 
membership list. As for the B. C. A. part, 
you can take a turn at guessing that. If any 
one gets it right we shall know that it’s too 
easy and that we’d better change to Greek 
letters or something. When you've guessed 
what it’s the cult of, of course you’ll under- 
stand the object of organizing it.” 

“ Very lucid indeed,” said Christy solemnly. 

“Don't try your patronizing faculty airs on 
me,” Madeline warned her. “ I may say in 
passing that in my humble opinion no 
faculty should be caught belonging to a nice 
frivolous affair like the * Merry Hearts.' A 


ON THE CAMPUS 


57 

kindly desire not to exclude our faculty 
friends of 19 — from our councils was of 
course my chief object in promoting the more 
dignified cult of the B. C. A.’s.” 

“ B. C. A. — Betty -Can’t Argue.” Mary, who 
had been lost in thought, burst out with her 
solution. “She can’t, you know. She always 
smiles and says, 1 1 don’t know why I think 
so, but I do.’ ” 

“ Beans Cooked Admirably,” suggested 
Emily. “ Then the obvious entertainment 
would be Saturday suppers a la Boston.” 

“ Butter Costs Awfully,” amended Christy. 
“ Then the obvious procedure would be to 
open a savings account.” 

“ Better Come Again,” was Rachel’s contri- 
bution. “ That sounds nice and sociable and 
Madelineish.” 

“ Thanks for the compliment. You’re get- 
ting the least little speck of a bit warm,” 
Madeline told her encouragingly. 

“ Brilliant Collegians’ Association,” inter- 
posed Betty eagerly. “ That must be right, 
because you’re all brilliant but me, and I’m 
the exception that proves it. Have I guessed, 
Madeline?” 


BETTY WALES 


58 

Madeline shook her head. “ Certainly not. 
Brilliance should be seen, not heard, Betty, 
my child. Besides, according to my well- 
known theory of names, a good one should 
bring out subtle, unsuspected qualities. That’s 
why editors get so excited., and even annoyed, 
about the titles of my stories ; they aren’t 
generally subtle enough themselves to get my 
subtle points.” 

“ Well, I may say that I sympathize with 
the editors,” declared Mary feelingly. “ Hurry 
and give a guess, Helen Chase, and then 
maybe she’ll tell us.” 

“ Bromides Can’t Attend,” said* Helen 
timidly. “ I suppose that’s wrong too.” 

“ Wildly,” Madeline assured her. 

“ And also senseless, I should say,” added 
Mary. “ What in the world are Bromides ? ” 

“ People who ask foolish questions,” ex- 
plained Christy, “ like that one you’ve just 
propounded. The others are Sulphites. Get 
the book from Helen, who had it presented 
to her to read on the train, and then you’ll 
know all about it. Now, Madeline, tell us 
quick.” 

Madeline shrugged her shoulders and 


ON THE CAMPUS 


59 


stirred her tea with a provoking air of 
leisureliness. “ It’s nothing to get excited 
about. Really, after all your ingenious 
guesses, the humble reality sounds very tame 
and obvious. We are the B. C. A.’s — the 
Back-to-the-College Again’s. It sounds simple, 
but like all my titles it involves deep subtle- 
ties. Why are we, of all the 19 — ’s who 
would give their best hats to be here, 
1 elected ’ to honor Harding with our pres- 
ence? What have we in common? The 
answer is of course the sign of the cult and 
the mark of eligibility. It's rather late to- 
day, so probably we’d better postpone the dis- 
cussion until the next weekly tea-drinking.” 

“ Oh, do we have weekly tea-drinkings ? ” 
asked Christy. “ Goodie ! now tell our for- 
tunes, Madeline.” 

“ Yes, that’s a lot more fun than a silly old 
discussion,” said Betty, holding out her cup. 

“ Wait a minute, Betty,” interrupted the 
methodical Rachel. “ She hasn’t told us the 
object of the cult yet.” 

Madeline swept the circle with a despairing 
glance. “ As if perfectly good tea and talk- 
ing about that ever-interesting subject, Our- 


6o 


BETTY WALES 


selves, wasn't ‘object' enough for anybody. 
But you can have an ‘object' if you like. I 
don't mind, only you know I always did 
refuse to get excited over objects and causes 
and all that sort of thing." Madeline 
reached for Betty's cup, and promptly dis- 
covered a tall, fair-haired “ suitor " in the 
bottom of it. “ He has an object," she de- 
clared. “ Can you guess what it is ? It’s 
Betty Wales." 

“ Well, I'm sure Betty's a worthy object for 
any suitor or any cult," Rachel declared. “ If 
you don’t believe it, watch her blush." 

“ I'm not blushing," Betty defended herself 
vigorously. “ I'm only thinking — thinking 
how nice it would be if the B. C. A.'s would 
take me for an object. I shall need lots of 
help and advice, and maybe other things, and 
I shall make you give them to me anyway, so 
you'd better elect me to be your object, and 
then you won’t mind so much." 

“ I shall be much relieved, for my part," 
declared Madeline. “ An object with yellow 
curls " 

“ And a dimple," put in Mary. 

“ Isn't likely to be very much of a bore," 


ON THE CAMPUS 61 

Madeline finished, and turned her attention 
to tea-grounds again, discovering so many 
suitors, European trips, and splendid presents, 
that Christy, who was house teacher at the 
Westcott, disgraced herself by being late to 
dinner. As for Mary Brooks Hinsdale, in the 
excitement of recounting it all to her hus- 
band, she utterly forgot that she had prom- 
ised to chaperon the Westcott House dance 
and had to be sent for by an irate and anx- 
ious committee, who, however, forgave her 
everything when she arrived in her most be- 
coming pink evening gown, declaring fer- 
vently that she should be heart-broken if she 
couldn’t dance every single number. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE GRASSHOPPER WAGER 

The two weeks after college opened were 
the most confused, crowded, delightful, and 
difficult ones that Betty Wales had ever lived 
through. There seemed to be twice as many 
freshmen as there had ever been in Harding 
before. The town swarmed with them and 
with their proud and anxious fathers and 
mothers and sisters and aunts. They fell 
upon the Tally-ho Tea-Shop with such ardor 
that Emily was^ in despair — or would have 
been if Betty hadn’t assumed charge of the 
dinner hour herself and adroitly impressed 
Madeline with the literary value of seeing 
life from the cashier’s desk at lunch time. 

Miss Dick’s school opened a fortnight after 
Harding, and then there was Dorothy to meet 
— the Bensons had brought her east with them 
on their way to New York — and the little 
girl was to be established this time in the 
boarding department, to the arrangements of 
62 


ON THE CAMPUS 63 

which she immediately took a perverse dislike. 
Considering that she was the youngest boarder 
and the pet and darling of the whole school, 
this seemed quite unreasonable, particularly 
as all the year before she had teased to be a 
“ boarder.” But Eugenia Ford took most of 
this worry off Betty’s hands, getting up early 
every morning to go over for a before-breakfast 
story, told while she combed out the Smallest 
Sister’s tangled curls, and never forgetting to 
appear in the evening at the exactly right 
minute to deliver a good-night kiss. 

“ Don’t thank me, please,” she begged Betty 
imploringly. “ Feeling as if I had to do it 
makes her seem a little more like my very 
own. Just think!” Eugenia’s eyes filled, 
but she went on bravely. “ I might be doing 
it for my very own little sister, if a dreadful 
French 1 bonne ’ hadn’t been careless about a 
cold she took. How can mothers ever care 
more about having dinner parties and dances 
and going to the opera, Miss Wales, than 
about playing with their babies and seeing 
that they’re all right ? My mother is like 
Peter Pan, I think. She will never grow up. 
And she never liked dolls when she was little, 


BETTY WALES 


64 

so naturally she didn’t care to play with us.” 
Eugenia flushed, suddenly realizing that she 
was indulging in rather strange confidences. 
“ My mother is a great beauty, Miss Wales, 
and awfully bright and entertaining. I’m 
very, very proud of her. And if Dorothy is 
the least bit sick or tired or unhappy on a 
day when you don’t see her, I’ll be sure to 
notice and tell you, so you can feel perfectly 
safe.” 

Of course the greatest problem, and one 
that nobody but Betty could do much to cope 
with, was the launching of the secretaryship. 
The secretary had been provided with a cozy 
little office, very businesslike with its roller- 
topped desk, a big filing cabinet, and a type- 
writer stand, tucked away in a corner of the 
Main Building ; but beyond that the trustful 
directors apparently expected her to shift for 
herself. Betty promptly interviewed the two 
faculty members of the board, who smiled at 
her eagerness and anxiety to please, and ad- 
vised her not to be in a hurry, but to begin 
with the obvious routine work — that meant 
interviewing and investigating the needs and 
the deserts of the girls who had applied for 


ON THE CAMPUS 65 

loans from the Student’s Aid — and to branch 
out gradually later, as opportunity offered. 

“ But I can’t do just that,” Betty told the 
second B. C. A. tea-drinking, “ because it’s no 
more than they did themselves before they 
had a secretary. It would be like stealing to 
take their money for just that.” 

“ Oh, I don’t know,” advised Madeline 
lazily. “ If they want to make it a snap 
course, isn’t that entirely their affair ? ” 

“ Why, Madeline Ayres,” objected Helen 
Adams solemnly, “ it’s a charitable enterprise. 
I don’t suppose snap courses are exactly 
wrong, though they never Amount to much, 
and so they waste the time of the ones that 
take them. But it would be positively wrong 
for the Student’s Aid to waste its money, 
when so many more poor girls want educa- 
tions than can have them.” 

Madeline listened, frowning intently. 
“ 1 The Immorality of the Snap Course ’ — I’ll 
do a little essay on that for the alumnse de- 
partment of the ‘ Argus.’ It will rattle the 
editor awfully, but she will almost have to 
print it, after having teased and teased me for 
a few words from my facile and distinguished 


66 


BETTY WALES 


pen. Thanks a lot, Helen, for the idea. I’d 
give you the credit in a foot-note, only it 
might scare girls away from your courses.” 

“ Aren’t you thankful, girls,” began Mary, 
waving her teacup majestically around the 
circle, “ that only one of us is a literary light? 
I wonder if real authors are as everlastingly 
given to changing the subject back to their 
own affairs as is our beloved Madeline. Now 
let’s get down to business ” 

“ Hear ! Hear ! ” cried Madeline. “ Little 
Mary will now voice her own and George 
Garrison Hinsdale’s sentiments on the im- 
morality of the snap course. Lend me a 
pencil, somebody, so I can take notes of her 
valued ideas.” 

“ The business,” continued Mary, scorn- 
fully ignoring the interruption, “ is to find 
more work for Betty, so she can earn her 
munificent salary properly. The meeting is 
now open for suggestions.” 

“ Well, Mary, fire away,” ordered Madeline 
briskly. “ Of course a person with your head 
for business is simply overflowing with bril- 
liant thoughts.” 

“ You think you’re being sarcastic, but just 


ON THE CAMPUS 67 

the same/’ declared Mary modestly, " I have 
got a head for business ” 

“ Witness the way you used to make your 
accounts balance when you were in college, 
and the way your allowance lasted,” put in 
Rachel laughingly. 

Mary smiled reminiscently. “ My dear 
Rachel, a head for business is entirely dif- 
ferent from being able to remember what 
you’ve spent. And even if I remembered, I 
couldn’t add it all up. But that’s bookkeep- 
ing, not business. As for using up my allow- 
ance ahead of time, I’m naturally an expan- 
sionist, and where would any respectable 
business be, may I ask you, if it didn’t go out 
every now and then and get more capital to 
expand with? I expanded the possibilities 
of the Harding course, and my father paid 
the bills ; unfortunately there are always 
bills,” concluded Mary with a sigh. 

“ Do you still finish }^our allowance on the 
fourth of the month ? ” demanded Christy. 

Mary shook her pretty head smilingly. 
“ Never — for the good and sufficient reason 
that George Garrison Hinsdale understands 
me too well to give me an allowance.” 


68 


BETTY WALES 


“The business of this meeting,” chanted 
Madeline sonorously, “is not, as you might 
suppose, a discussion of little Mary’s domestic 
and financial affairs.” 

“Well, the girls asked me questions,” de- 
clared Mary indignantly, “ and I didn’t know 
that there was any such awful rush. I’m not 
trying to gain time while I think up an in- 
spiration, as you — well, I won’t start any more 
quarrels. I’ll only say that I’m not delaying 
in hopes of having an idea for Betty, because 
I’ve already got one. I think she ought to 
advertise.” 

“How?” 

“Why?” 

“ Sounds as if she was a breakfast food or a 
patent medicine.” 

“ She’s an employment bureau at present,” 
explained Mary serenely, “ and when Morton 
Hall is ready to open she’ll be a house agent. 
She’s got to let people know that the bulletin- 
board in the gym basement is a back member, 
because she has it beaten cold. She imperson- 
ates the great and only link between the tal- 
ented poor and the idle rich in this com- 
munity.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 69 

“ That sounds well,” admitted Christy, 
“ but how in the world is she to do it — be the 
great and only link, I mean ? ” 

Mary shrugged her shoulders, and began 
putting on her gloves, which were new and 
fitted beautifully. “ I leave all that to you,” 
she said. “ I really must go now. Miss 
Ferris is having an intellectual dinner party 
for a philosopher from Boston, and we’re 
asked. I always make a point of wearing my 
prettiest things to their intellectual dinners — 
it’s the least and the most that I can do — and 
one’s prettiest things do take ages to get into. 
Good-bye, my dears.” 

“ She’s hit it, as usual,” said Rachel admir- 
ingly, when Mary’s trim little figure had 
rustled out of sight. “ The important thing 
to do is to make the girls realize what you’re 
here for. Most of them know that you’re the 
new Student’s Aid secretary ” 

“ But they don’t know how to use you in 
their business,” Christy took her up. 

“And the ones that need you most will 
always be too scared,” put in Helen Adams 
earnestly. “ When I was a junior ” — she 
blushed a little at her tardy admission — “ my 


7 ° 


BETTT WALES 


mother lost some money, and we didn’t have 
as much interest to live on. I thought I 
might have to leave college, and I wondered 
if the Student’s Aid would help me to stay. 
But I was too scared to ask. I started twice 
to go and see one of the faculty directors, but 
I just couldn’t screw up my courage. And 
then mother sold a farm that she’d wanted to 
get rid of for years, so it was all right. But — 
well, I wasn’t ashamed to ask for help ; I was 
just scared,” ended Helen incoherently. 

“ Results of investigation up to date,” began 
Emily, who was dividing her time between 
the cashier’s desk and the B. C. A.’s table. 
“ First, let people know what you are here for ; 
secondly, take away the scared feeling from 
girls, who, as well as }^ou can guess, may need 
help ; third — this is original with me — get the 
girls who have money properly excited about 
having things done for them. I can tell you, 
I used to bless the B’s for the sentiment 
they created in favor of hiring somebody to 
sew on skirt braids and mend stockings.” 

“ Well, the B’s aren’t the only ones who 
can create sentiments,” said Madeline. “ Geor- 
gia’s very good at it, and the Dutton twins 


ON THE CAMPUS 


7 1 


are regular geniuses. Fluffy Dutton could 
make people so wildly enthusiastic over the 
binomial theorem that they’d be ready to die 
for it if she asked them to.” 

“ Then get them started on Betty,” ordered 
Rachel. “ Madeline Ayres is hereby elected 
to enthuse all the champion enthusers on the 
subject of the enjoyability of being mended 
up by somebody else.” 

Madeline bowed gravely. “ I hereby accept 
the chairmanship of the committee on Proper 
Excitement of the Idle Rich, and I would 
suggest Rachel Morrison as chairman of the 
committee on Proper Encouragement of the 
Timid Poor, and Christy Mason to head one 
on Proper Exploitation of Miss Betty Wales, 
the eager, earnest, and insufficiently employed 
Student’s Aid Secretary.” 

“ If I might humbly suggest something at 
this point,” laughed Christy, “ it would be 
that Betty might like to invent her own 
committees and choose the chairmen of 
them.” 

11 Oh, no indeed,” cried Betty heartily. 
“ You all have such splendid ideas and Made- 
line has such lovely names for things. Please 


72 


BETTY WALES 


go on and think of something else. I haven’t 
dared to say a word all this time, because I 
was so afraid that you would stop.” 

“ That’s the proper spirit for an Object.” 
Madeline patted Betty’s shoulder encourag- 
ingly. “ Accept the goods the B. C. A.’s 
provide. Instead of not earning your salary, 
my child, you’re going to give the Student’s 
Aid the biggest kind of a bargain. Besides 
one small secretary (with curls and a dimple) 
they’re getting the invaluable assistance of at 
least six prominent graduates, and any 
number of influential college girls. If that’s 
not a run for their money, I should like to 
know what they want.” 

“ Oh, they haven’t acted dissatisfied,” ex- 
plained Betty hastily. “ It was only I that 
was worried.” 

“ Well, I should like to know what you 
want, then,” amended Madeline with severity. 
Then she smiled a self-satisfied little smile. 
“ It’s all right to ask 1 What’s in a name?’ 
There’s nothing much in some names, but if 
these committees of mine aren’t rather extra 
popular on account of their stylish headings, 
I shall stop trying to make a reputation for 


ON THE CAMPUS 


73 

clever titles and devote my life to producing 
horrible commonplaces for the Woman’s Page 
of the Sunday papers. I’m going up to the 
campus this minute to talk to Georgia and 
Fluffy Dutton. Come along, Rachel, and get 
your committee started too.” 

“ Wait a minute, Madeline,” Emily broke 
in. “Why not organize a sort of council of 
all the committees, and have a meeting of it 
here some afternoon next week to talk over 
the situation ? ” 

Madeline stared at her sadly. “ If you 
think I’m going to spoil my perfectly good 
committee by asking it to meet, you don’t 
understand the first principles of my sweet 
and simple nature. The last way to properly 
excite people is to hold stupid meetings. 
Come along, Rachel, before my beautiful 
enthusiasm vanishes.” 

The next morning Fluffy Dutton appeared 
in “ Psych. 6 ” ten minutes after the hour, 
with a yard of black mohair braid trailing 
conspicuously from her note-book. 

The lecture was hopelessly dull, and the 
class concentrated its wandering attention 
on the braid which, with a notice pinned 


BETTT WALES 


74 

to one end, traveled slowly up and down the 
room. 


il For those wishing to be neat 
Here’s a plan that can’t be beat. 

Pin your name upon this braid 
You’ll a needy student aid. 

Tell her where and when to call 
And she’ll do it — that is all. 

She’ll rip the old braid, sew on new, 

And prompt return your skirt to you.” 

So read the rhyming notice, and below it was 
printed in large letters, “ Lowest Prices for all 
Repairing, Mending, and Plain Sewing (in- 
cluding Gym Suits).” 

When the strip of braid got back to Fluffy 
it looked like the tail of a kite, with its col- 
lection of orders scattered artistically up and 
down its length. 

“ Yes, I wrote the rhyme,” Fluffy admitted 
modestly, when the class was dismissed. 
“ Wrote it between breakfast and chapel. 
What made me late to Psych, was buying the 
braid. Georgia wrote one too, and we are rac- 
ing each other to see who gets the largest 
number of orders. Oh, yes, I suppose they do 
need the work — or the money rather. But 


ON THE CAMPUS 


75 


the thing that appeals to me is the impression 
I shall make on my mother when I go home 
all neat and tidy and mended up for once. 
Haven’t you a freshman sister? Well, put 
her down for a gym suit, that’s a dear ! 
Georgia’s going to catch me a dozen grasshop- 
pers if I win. I hate catching things so — my 
hair always blows in my eyes.” 

“ And what if Georgia wins? ” 

“ Oh, then I’ve got to catch her a dozen 
grasshoppers,” said Fluffy resignedly. “ But 
I don’t care much, because I shall hire it done, 
and that will be all for the good of the cause. 
But I can’t believe that she will win, because 
gym suits count as three skirt braids, and 
positions for waitresses count as five. I’m go- 
ing to get a lot of those from eleven to twelve. 
Georgia is furious because this is her lab. 
morning, and she can’t get a good start.” 
And Fluffy trailed her skirt braid over to 
Junior Lit. where she got so many orders that 
she had to unpin them, place them on file, so 
to speak, in the front of her shirt-waist, and 
start over. 

It may be reprehensible to wager grasshop- 
pers ; but, as Fluffy pointed out to some hu- 


y6 BETTY WALES 

mane friend, they were doomed in any case, 
and there was a piquant flavor of adventure 
about the whole proceeding that appealed 
strongly to one type of the Harding mind. 
The committee on the Encouragement (and 
discovery) of the Timid Poor convened hastily 
that same evening in Betty’s shiny new office, 
and discovered that while their day’s work 
had necessarily been less spectacular than 
their rivals’, it had been equally effective. 
There would be no trouble in matching work- 
ers to skirt braids. 

“ But there’ll be all kinds of trouble about 
flunked courses,” announced Eugenia Ford 
solemn^, “ unless we remember to pay better 
attention in 1 Psych. 6.’ He gave out a writ- 
ten lesson for to-morrow on purpose, because 
there was so much whispering and rustling 
around to-day.” 

“ The more flunking, the more tutoring,” 
suggested a pretty junior, and blushed very 
pink when she remembered that Rachel Mor- 
rison was on the faculty. 

“ That was a foolish remark,” she added 
apologetically. “ For my part, I honestly 
think there’ll be less flunking than usual. It 


ON THE CAMPUS 


77 


makes you more in earnest about your own col- 
lege course when you see how some girls value 
it, and what they'll sacrifice to get it. Come 
along, Eugenia, and let’s begin to burn the 
midnight oil.” 


CHAPTER V 


REINFORCEMENTS 

The initiation of Babbie Hildreth, which 
had to be over in time for the participants to 
meet Eleanor Watson’s train, was the feature 
of the next B. C. A. tea-drinking, held two 
days ahead of time in honor of the double re- 
inforcement to the ranks of 19 — . 

“ I hope you’re all satisfied. I’ve come up 
here out of pure curiosity about this old cult,” 
announced Babbie, when they were settled 
cozily in Flying Hoof’s stall. “ You all wrote 
the most maddening letters — it was arranged, 
I know, what each one should say, so that I’d 
keep getting crazier and crazier to be let into 
the secret.” 

“ Didn’t you rather want to see your ele- 
gant new tea-shop?” demanded Rachel inno- 
cently. 

“ Ye-es ” — Babbie flushed, — “ of course I 
did. It’s lovely, isn’t it? Nora must ap- 
preciate her splendid kitchen ” 

78 


ON THE CAMPUS 


79 


" Why, you haven't seen the kitchen yet, 
Babbie," cried Helen Adams reproachfully. 
“ I’ve been with you every minute since you 
came." 

“ Well, I can guess what it’s like, can’t I? " 
Babbie defended herself. 

“ Babbie Hildreth," demanded Madeline, 
sternly, “ when were you up here last ? " 

“ In August," Babbie admitted sulkily, “ if 
you must know. My Aunt Belinda brought 
me up in her car." She brightened in spite 
of herself. “ Aunt Belinda is so lovely and 
romantic. She thinks it’s all right for me to 
come up and see Robert, since he can’t come 
very often to see me. Mother doesn’t, ex- 
actly. But she was terribly amused at this 
B. C. A. cult. She told me to run along 
and satisfy my ‘ satiable curiosity ’ if I 
wanted to. I — oh, excuse me one minute, 
please ! " 

Having thoughtfully secured a seat at the 
end of the stall, Babbie had been the first to 
observe a dark object in the act of vaulting 
the Tally-ho’s back fence. She intercepted 
the dark object on the front walk, and accom- 
panied it forthwith to Paradise, where the tea 


8o 


BETTT WALES 


and marmalade that you hunger for and the 
curiosity that you feel about mysterious 
“ cults ” may both, under favorable circum- 
stances, be forgotten as utterly as if they had 
never been. 

So the B. C. A/s amused themselves by 
inventing some stunning “ features ” for a 
formal initiation ceremony to be held later for 
Eleanor and Babbie together, ate Babbie’s 
share of the muffins and jam, congratulated 
themselves on the way they had “ set Betty 
up in business,” as Mary Brooks modestly put 
it, and waited so long for their beloved 
“ Object ” to appear — it was an office-hours 
afternoon, and Betty had refused to desert her 
post even for a B. C. A. tea-drinking — that 
they had to run all the way to the station, 
only to discover, on arriving there breathless 
and disheveled, that the train was an hour 
late. 

“ So we might just as well have preserved 
the dignity of the Harding faculty and wives,” 
sighed Mary, straightening her new fall hat. 
“ It’s all your fault, Betty Wales. You said 
you’d come in time to go to the train, and we 
kept thinking you’d arrive upon the scene 


ON THE CAMPUS 


81 


every single minute. And the longer we 
waited the more we ate, and then the harder 
it was to run.” 

“ Some one came in to see me just at the 
last minute,” Betty explained. “ I couldn’t 
say that I had an engagement when it was 
just larks.” 

Betty let the cult and its friends get all the 
orders they would for skirt braids and gym 
suits, and all possible data about needy girls ; 
but she never confided in them, in return — a 
conservative attitude which Madeline con- 
sidered “ distinctly snippy.” 

“ I just know you’re concealing all sorts of 
stunning short stories about your person,” she 
declared. “ Now Bob tells me lovely things 
about her fresh-air kids. She isn’t such a 
clam.” 

But Betty was equally impervious to being 
called a clam and to fulfilling her obliga- 
tions toward Madeline’s Literary Career. The 
humor and the pathos that came into the sec- 
retary’s office she regarded as state secrets, to 
be never so much as hinted at, even to her 
dearest friends. 

“ But it sometimes seems as if I should just 


82 


‘ BETTY WALES 


burst with it all,” she told Jim Watson, who 
poked his head in her door nearly every day, 
and rapidly withdrew it again if any one else 
was with her. “ It isn't only the girls who 
come on regular business that are so queer, 
but the ones that come just for advice. 
Eugenia Ford has the strangest ideas about 
my being able to straighten things out, and 
she's told her crowd, and they’ve told their 
friends. Every day some girl walks in and 
says, 4 Are you the one who will answer ques- 
tions ? ' Then I say who I am, and suggest 
that maybe she wants her class officer. But 
she says no, she means me ; and maybe she's 
a freshman who has decided that she can't 
live another day without her collie dog, and 
maybe she's a senior, who has cut too much 
and is frightened silly about being sent home, 
and maybe she's a pretty, muddle-headed 
little sophomore who's in love with a Winsted 
man and doesn't dare tell her father and 
mother, and is thinking of eloping. Oh, Jim, 
these are just possible cases, you understand, 
not real ones. But you mustn’t ever breathe 
a word of what I've said." 

“ I’m as silent as a tomb," Jim would as- 


ON THE CAMPUS 83 

sure her gravely each time that something 
too nearly “ real ” slipped out. 

“ Well, you’re the only one I ever do burst 
out to,” Betty assured him, “ except when I 
decide that it’s only right to ask Miss Ferris 
or Prexy or some responsible person like 
them for advice. I don’t know why I should 
talk so much more about it to you, except 
that you don’t know any of the girls and 
never will, whereas Madeline would be sure 
to write up anything funny that she heard, 
and Rachel and Christy and Helen are on the 
faculty and the girls who come to see me 
might be in their classes, and if Emily Davis 
knew she’d want terribly to tell the rest.” 

“ All girls are leaky,” Jim would announce 
sententiously at this point in the argument. 
“ Besides, I’ve been a secretary myself. My 
job was exactly the same as yours in the 
matter of holding confidential information. 
Now when are you coming over to see about 
that linen closet? ” 

It was really not at all surprising, consider- 
ing how highly Jasper J. Morton valued her 
opinion, that his architectural representative 
found it necessary to consult Betty Wales al- 


BETTY WALES 


84 

most every day on some problem growing out 
of the peculiar adaptabilities and arrange- 
ments of Morton Hall. 

The B. C. A.’s paced the station platform 
till they were tired, and then they further 
outraged the dignity of the “ faculty and 
wives ” by sitting down to rest on a baggage 
truck, and swinging their feet off the edge. 
It was thus that Jim, who had taken the pre- 
caution to telephone the ticket agent before 
leaving home, found them a few minutes be- 
fore Eleanor's arrival. 

“ Do make yourselves as fascinating as you 
can,” he implored them all naively, “ so 
she’ll stay. She’s been taking singing lessons 
lately at home, and her teacher had a New 
York teacher visiting her, and both of them 
got excited about Eleanor’s voice. So now 
she’s written about some crazy plan she has 
for a winter in New York, studying music. 
That’s all right after Christmas, maybe, but 
at present I want her right here, and the per- 
son who can make her see it that way wins 
my everlasting gratitude.” 

“ You’ll be likely to win your own ever- 


QP 



SITTING DOWN TO REST ON A BAGGAGE TRUCK 


« 




































































ON THE CAMPUS 85 

lasting gratitude, I should say,” Madeline 
told him. “ Eleanor was always expatiating 
on the charms of her brother Jim.” 

Jim blushed. “That’s all right, but I 
have a feeling that she’s keener about some 
other fellow’s charms by this time. Plenty 
of fellows are certainly keen about hers. But 
lately she doesn’t pay any attention to 
them — -just goes in for slumming and im- 
proving her mind, and now her voice. So 
give her a good time, and get her excited 
about your mysterious club, and when she 
begins on the earnestness of life and the self- 
improvement business, ring in all Miss 
Betty’s philanthropies. And I’ll come in 
strong on the lonely brother act. I say, 
there she is this minute ! ” 

Jim gave a running jump on to the plat- 
form of a passing car and had his innings 
while the girls, taken unaware, scrambled 
down from their truck and hurried after him. 

It didn’t seem as if it would be hard to 
keep Eleanor. There was the little awkward 
moment at first, that even the best of friends 
experience when they haven’t seen each other 
for over a year ; and then such a babel of talk 


86 


BETTT WALES 


and laughter, of questions asked all at once 
and never answered, of explanations inter- 
rupted by exclamations, and rendered wholly 
incoherent by hugs and kisses. 

“ You haven't changed a bit/’ they told 
her. 

“ Yes, you have ! You’re prettier than 
ever.” 

“ When will you sing for us?” 

“ Have you done any writing lately ? ” 

“ Are you too tired to see the Tally-ho 
right away ? ” 

“You’re to live in Rachel’s little white 
house, you know, and we’re all quarreling 
about when we can have you for dinner.” 

“ Picnics ! I should think so. As many 
as you want.” 

“ Don’t those infants make the absurdest 
imitations of faculties? ” 

“ How do you like little Mary’s new 
hat?” 

They walked up Main Street chattering like 
magpies and forgetting to turn out for any- 
body, Jim bringing up the rear with Eleanor’s 
suit case in one hand and a book of Babbie’s 
and an untidy bundle of manuscript that Mad- 


ON THE CAMPUS 87 

eline had dropped in her excitement tucked 
under the other arm. 

Christy invited the whole party to dinner 
at the Tally-ho, and they decided that it was 
quite warm enough to eat in the top story of 
the Peter Pan annex. Jim had lighted all 
the Chinese lanterns and hauled up two 
baskets full of dinner, while the girls chat- 
tered merrily on as if they never meant to 
stop, when Babbie and Mr. Thayer appeared, 
sauntering slowly down the hill from the di- 
rection of Paradise. They didn't seem at all 
ashamed of the way Babbie had been snatched 
away from her own initiation party, but shouted 
up that they were simply starved to death, and 
cheerfully assuming that there was dinner 
enough and room enough for all comers, they 
annexed themselves to Christy's party. 

“ You're lucky to have a sister to look after 
you," Mr. Thayer told Jim. “ I opened a big 
club-house for my mill people last winter, 
just to please these young ladies, and how do 
they pay me? By cold, cruel neglect." 

“ Nonsense ! " Madeline contradicted him 
cheerfully. “ We gave you a splendid start. 
That's all we do for anybody." 


88 


BETTY WALES 


" We’re all so busy,” Betty added quickly. 
11 But we are just as interested as we ever were. 
Isn’t the girl I sent you managing well? ” 

Mr. Thayer nodded. “ Only she can’t seem 
to discover a genius who’s able to take hold 
of the prize class.” 

“ Is that the one my adorable Rafael is 
in ? ” demanded Madeline. “ Because if it 
is, I might ” 

“ It is, but you can’t have it,” Babbie told 
her firmly. “ They changed teachers four 
times last year, after you dropped them so 
unceremoniously. This time they’re to have 
some one who will stick, aren’t they, Robert ? ” 

Mr. Thayer looked uncomfortable, not wish- 
ing either to contradict Babbie or to slight 
Madeline’s offer. “ It’s better, of course, but 
perhaps Miss Madeline will stick this time.” 

“ Robert ! ” Babbie’s tone was very hopeless. 
“ Can’t you understand that Madeline is about 
as likely to stick as Prexy is to dance a horn- 
pipe at to-morrow’s chapel ? ” She sighed 
deeply. “ It must be terrible to be a re- 
former ; you have to be so hopeful about 
people’s turning over a new leaf — whether 
it’s Madeline sticking, or a dreadful old 


ON THE CAMPUS 89 

Frenchman beating his wife, or the angelic- 
looking Rafael learning his alphabet.” 

“Haven’t they learned that yet?” asked 
Madeline incredulously. 

“ Certainly not,” retorted Babbie. “ You 
jabbered Italian all the time to them, and 
that spoiled them so that they never would 
study for the other teachers.” 

“ I regret my reprehensible familiarity with 
their mother tongue,” announced Madeline 
grandiloquently, “ and I hereby make due 
reparation.” Her glance wandered around 
the table. “ I elect Eleanor Watson to take 
the prize class.” 

“ Tell me about it,” Eleanor asked. “ I 
don’t understand at all. I didn’t know there 
were any foreigners in Harding.” 

So they told her about Factory Hill, about 
Young-Man-Over-the-Fence and his Twelfth- 
Night party that accidentally started the fund 
for the club-house, about the education clause 
in the new factory laws, the club organization, 
which was now so efficiently managed by the 
Student’s Aid’s prize beneficiary — a senior 
who had earned every bit of her college 
course — and finally about Rafael and Giu- 


9 o 


BETTT WALES 


seppi and Pietro and the other Italian boys, 
who scorned their French and Polish, Portu- 
guese and German comrades, and insisted 
upon their own little club — a concession in 
return for which they played truant, refused 
to study or pay attention, and quarreled vio- 
lently on the slightest provocation. They 
would have to be dropped from the factory 
pay-roll, according to the new law, if they 
did not speedily mend their ways and learn 
to read and write. 

“ Why, I should be almost afraid to be left 
alone with them,” Eleanor exclaimed at the 
end of the recital. “ Do they carry daggers ? ” 

“ No, they’re not quite so barbaric as that,” 
Mr. Thayer told her. “They are just lively 
boys, who’ve been brought up with strong 
race prejudices and no chance to have the 
jolly good times that would make them for- 
get their feuds and revolts. They work hard 
because their fathers make them, and because 
it’s the regular way of living for them. But 
being forced to study they consider the most 
bitter tyranny. The factory inspectors have 
had their cases up twice now, and if I can’t 
make a good report on them at Christmas I 


ON THE CAMPUS 


9i 


shall have to let them go. I hate to, because 
they can’t get other work here, and if they 
leave their homes and friends, nine out of the 
ten will probably go straight to the bad.” 

“ There’s your chance, Eleanor,” Jim told 
her eagerly. 

“ But, Jim, I can’t 1 stick/ as Babbie calls 
it. I’m here only for a little visit. My 
music ” 

“ Go down every week for a lesson,” Jim 
ordered easily. “ Don’t miss a chance at a 
ripping New England autumn with all this 
good society thrown in.” 

“ Even if you’re not staying long, do take 
them off my hands for a few weeks,” begged 
Mr. Thayer. “ They’re afraid of me and sulk 
stupidly if I try to teach them, and they’ve 
been rather too much for any of the girls 
who’ve tried.” 

“ Then what makes you think ” began 

Eleanor. 

“ You’ve been elected, Eleanor,” Madeline 
broke in impatiently. “ That settles it. You 
can manage them the way you managed 
that newsboys’ club in Denver. Oh, I’ve 
h ear d ” as Eleanor flushed and protested. 


92 


BETTT WALES 


“ That’s why I elected you. Now we want 
some songs. Where’s her guitar, Monsieur 
Jacques? If Rafael won’t learn the alphabet 
any other way, you can sing it to him.” 

So Eleanor laughingly consented to meet 
the Terrible Ten, as Babbie called them, the 
next night, and the Ten won her heart, as Jim 
had hoped they would. 

Eleanor never mentioned the alphabet. 
She merely inquired of the circle of dark 
faces who had heard of Robin Hood, and re- 
ceiving only sullen negatives, she began a 
story. One by one the sullen faces grew 
eager. At a most exciting point, where 
Robin and his band were on the point of play- 
ing a fine joke on the Sheriff* of Nottingham, 
she stopped abruptly. 

“ I’m tired,” she said. “ That’s all for to- 
night.” 

“ You tella more next day ? ” demanded the 
graceless Rafael. He had fairly drowned out 
the first part of the tale with muttered threats 
upon Pietro, who had hidden his cap. 

Eleanor hesitated diplomatically. “ Would 
you really like to hear the rest ? ” she asked 
finally. 


ON THE CAMPUS 


93 


Rafael’s brown eyes met hers, clouded with 
supreme indifference, and his expressive 
shoulders shrugged coldly. 

“ Oh, maybe,” he admitted. 

“ Then what will you do for me? You 
can’t expect me to amuse you big boys the 
whole evening, while you do nothing to 
amuse me in return. This is a club, you 
know. In a club everybody does something 
for everybody else.” 

“ What you like?” demanded Rafael, with 
suppressed eagerness. 

“Yes, what you like?” echoed Pietro, the 
quarrel between them quite forgotten. 

“ I’m very fond of pictures,” announced 
Eleanor gravely. “ If you’d each draw a pic- 
ture of Robin Hood on the blackboard over 
there — here are a lot of colored chalks — and 
put his name under it — Robin, we’ll call him 
for short — why, I should think you’d done 
your full share.” 

The Terrible Ten exchanged bewildered 
glances, and one after another slouched non- 
chalantly to the chalk box. The colored 
crayons were a novelty, nine of the Terrible 
Ten were born artists, and the tenth — Rafael, 


94 


BETTY WALES 


whose crushed hand was still stiff and awk- 
ward — was pathetically anxious to satisfy the 
new teacher’s strange demands. His Robin 
Hood looked like a many colored smutch, with 
a sprawling green frame around it — that was 
Sherwood forest, thrown in for good measure. 

“ Don’t forget the name,” Eleanor reminded 
them calmly, when, the pictures finished, the 
artists began to exchange furtive glances 
again in regard to the next requirement. 

“ You make lil’ sample on mine,” suggested 
Rafael craftily. 

“ No, I’ll make one up here,” Eleanor 
amended, “ where everybody can see it.” 

And to her surprise the Terrible Ten, with 
many sighs and grimaces, and much smut- 
ting out of mistakes with wetted fingers, toil- 
somely accomplished the writing. 

“ Now,” Eleanor said, “ let’s talk for a while 
before we go home. There’s a bag of peanuts 
under my coat. Will you bring it, please, 
Pietro ? ” She took the bag and grouped the 
boys around the long table. “Now let’s play 
a game while we eat. I’ll ask questions, and 
the one that answers quickest gets some 
peanuts. Listen now : if I give Pietro six 


ON THE CAMPUS 


95 

peanuts and Giovanni five, liow many will 
that be ? ” 

Dazed looks on the faces of the Ten, followed 
by anxious finger-counting. 

“ Fifteen,” hazarded Pietro. 

“ Nix, nine,” shrieked Rafael. 

Giuseppi got it right, and to make sure they 
counted at the top of their lungs, while 
Eleanor passed him, one by one, the eleven 
peanuts. 

“ Now, if he gives Pietro two ” began 

Eleanor. 

“ Aw, come off. You say you gif to me,” 
interrupted Giuseppi. “ I wish to keep my 
peanuts.” 

Eleanor gravely accepted the amendment. 
“ All right.” She counted out eleven peanuts, 
and held them up in her hand. “ Now I 
have eleven peanuts. If I give Pietro two ” — 
she suited the action to the word — “ how many 
have I left ? ” 

More frantic finger-counting, and this time 
Giovanni got the prize. 

Then Rafael and his six unfed comrades 
burst into angry protests. “ You give Pietro 
two for nix. He never guess right.” 


BETTY WALES 


96 

“ No fair that he gets some for nix .” 

Eleanor met the crisis calmly. “ They’re 
my peanuts, so I can give him two if I like. 
But wait a minute. See what I do now. I 
give Rafael two, you two, you two, and you, and 
you, and you, and you. How many is that? 
The one that guesses right gets as many as all 
you boys have together. Quick now.” 

Efforts to eat the peanuts and count them 
at the same time resulted in absolute pande- 
monium. 

“ Let’s have paper,” Eleanor suggested. 
“ That’s easier than doing it all in your head.” 

Before the evening was over the passing out 
of peanuts two by two had accomplished the 
learning of the “ two-times ” table, as far as 
two times ten. 

“ Who promises to come next time ? ” asked 
Eleanor, while they waited awkwardly for her 
to gather up her wraps. 

“ Me.” 

“ Me.” 

41 Me.” 

“ You bet I do.” 

“ Dis club is O. K.” 

“ You doan fergit the story? ” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


97 


“ Not if you’ll all try to remember the 1 two- 
times ’ table,” Eleanor promised, shaking 
hands gravely all around. 

“ She’s de peach fer sure. Gotta all dem oder 
teachers beat,” announced Pietro on the steps. 

“ Don’t you call her no peach. She’s a 
lovely lady,” corrected Rafael, aiming a deft 
blow with his left hand. 

“ Ain’t a lada a peach ? ” challenged Pietro, 
dancing out of reach. 

“ All right for Italian girl, not good enough 
for lika her,” Rafael answered fiercely. 

“ Wonder if she bring more dem peanuts 
next week,” speculated Nicolo. 

“ She ain’t no millionaire, maybe.” Rafael 
turned upon him scowling. “ But doan you 
dare fergit the two-times, ’cause den she’ll 
fergit Robin. I killa de kid dat fergits.” 

Rafael was evidently the Ten’s leader. 
They received his dire threat in awed silence, 
and tramped off, chanting the two-times table 
with a vigor that reached Eleanor, reporting 
her evening’s experiences to Mr. Thayer, and 
clinched her wavering determination into a 
promise to stay for at least a month in 
Harding. 


CHAPTER VI 


frisky fenton’s martyrdom 

The Smallest Sister was reconciled at last to 
being a boarder. 

“ I’ve got a new chum,” she announced 
eagerly, coming to see her sister on an after- 
noon which Betty, feeling more than usually 
“ caught-up ” with her other activities, had 
decided to devote to Dorothy. 

“What’s happened to Shirley Ware?” 
asked Betty. 

“ We’re mad at each other — at least I’m 
mad at Shirley.” The Smallest Sister as- 
sumed an air of injured innocence. “ We 
don’t speak any more, except to say good- 
morning at breakfast if Miss Dick is looking 
right at us.” 

“ But that’s so silly, Dorothy,” Betty pro- 
tested. “ Shirley is a dear little girl, and if 
you’ve quarreled it’s probably more your 
fault than hers. Tell me all about it, dearie.” 

“ Well,” Dorothy began sulkily, “ I’d just as 
98 


ON THE CAMPUS 


99 


soon tell you, only Frisky — that’s Francisca 
Fenton, my new chum — she asked us all 
not to say anything more about it. I’m 
not the only one that’s mad at Shirley. 
Nearly every single girl at Miss Dick’s is too, 
— only being chums with her makes it worse 
for me, because I’m so ashamed of her.” 

“ Who is this Francisca Fenton ? ” asked 
Betty, digressing diplomatically for a moment 
from the main issue. “ I never even heard 
you speak of her before. Haven’t you be- 
come chums very fast ? ” 

Dorothy nodded importantly. “ She’s one 
of the older girls. Maybe you haven’t heard 
me speak of her, but I’ve just nearly wor- 
shipped her ever since she came last fall. 
The other day when I cried because I was so 
mad at Shirley and so ashamed of her, why, 
she came and asked me to be chums. Her 
chum was in it too, you see. I mean she 
took sides with Shirley.” 

“ Sides about what ? ” asked Betty inno- 
cently. 

“ About being a tattle-tale, of course,” 
Dorothy began, and stopped short, setting her 
pretty little mouth in a straight, determined 


IOO 


BETTY WALES 


line. “ Frisky asked me not to talk about it, 
and I shan’t,” she announced. “ So don’t you 
try to make me.” 

Betty was mending a pair of Dorothy’s 
gloves. She stuck the needle into the rip, 
folded the gloves, and silently began upon 
the holes in her own stockings. Dorothy 
pretended to look out the window, but she 
kept one eye on Betty, who appeared com- 
pletely absorbed in her work. 

“ It’s a lovely day,” the Smallest Sister ob- 
served presently. 

No answer. 

“ Aren’t we going for our walk pretty 
soon ? ” demanded the Smallest Sister, after a 
polite interval. 

There was another polite interval, then she 
came over to Betty’s chair and repeated her 
question. “ Didn’t you hear me, Betty ? I 
asked can’t we go for our walk pretty soon? ” 

Betty looked at her coldly. “ You can go 
any time you like,” she said. 

“ But I’m your company. You asked me 
to spend the afternoon, and have supper with 
you and Miss Eleanor and Eugenia.” 

Betty continued her cold scrutiny of the 


ON THE CAMPUS 


IOI 


Smallest Sister’s small person. “ I asked my 
nice little sister to supper,” she announced 
judicially. “I didn’t ask a silly little girl 
who has silly little quarrels with her best 
friends, and then won’t talk it over with me 
and let me help her straighten it all out.” 

“ I don’t want to straighten it out,” mut- 
tered Dorothy defiantly, “ and Frisky spe- 
cially asked us ” 

“ Not to talk about it in the school,” con- 
cluded Betty. “ If she asked you not to talk 
about it to your mothers and big sisters, why, 
she isn’t a good kind of chum for you. She 
can’t be.” 

Dorothy flushed an angry pink. “ Just 
wait till you see her. She’s lovely. She’s 
the nicest chum I ever, ever had.” 

Betty got up quietly and handed the Small- 
est Sister her hat and coat. “ You’d better 
be going back, I think,” she said very cheer- 
fully. 

“ Back where ? ” 

“ To school, of course, for supper.” 

“ I can’t do that,” Dorothy interposed has- 
tily. “ Why, I asked Miss Dick for permis- 
sion to come and stay with you till the even- 


102 


BETTY WALES 


ing study hour. She'd think it was very 
queer for me not to stay." 

“ I’ll telephone her and explain," said 
Betty inexorably. 

“ I shan’t go if you do," declared the little 
rebel. “ So now ! I shan’t go ! " 

“ Dorothy Wales," began Betty gravely, 
putting one arm around the Smallest Sister’s 
waist and drawing her stiff little figure closer, 
“ if mother were here and you acted this way 
you know as well as I do what she’d do. 
She’d send you straight to bed to stay all this 
lovely long afternoon. Now I’m not mother, 
so I can’t do that. It’s not my place. But I 
can see that I’ve made a mistake in bringing 
you here. I thought you loved me enough to 
do as I want — as I think best, I mean. You 
don’t, so I must send you home to mother at 
once. Now I want you to go right back to 
Miss Dick’s, and tell her that I can’t have 
you to tea to-day. You needn’t say why. And 
I shall write to mother to-night." 

“But Bett}^ " 

“ There’s no use arguing about it, Dorothy," 
Betty cut her short. “ I mean exactly what I 
say. Put on your hat at once." 


ON THE CAMPUS 


103 

A month of being the youngest boarder and 
the school pet, supplemented by Eugenia’s 
many flattering attentions, had badly spoiled 
the Smallest Sister, but she could still recog- 
nize the voice of authority. In an uncomfort- 
able flash she came to her senses. Her 
sister Betty meant what she said. She was 
going to be sent back to mother in disgrace. 
For a few minutes longer pride sustained her. 
Silentl} r she lifted her chin for Betty to draw 
the elastic of her hat beneath it. Silently she 
stretched out her arms for Betty to pull on 
her coat. With only a faint tremor in her 
voice she said good-bye, and holding herself 
very erect marched out of the room, shutting 
the door after herself in a fashion that could 
not absolutely be called banging, because then 
Betty might tell her to come back and do it 
over, but was perilously near that unladylike 
mode of procedure. 

When she had gone Betty sank down 
wearily in her big chair. She was bewil- 
dered, frightened, discouraged. “ I didn’t 
manage right,” she reflected sadly. “ I ought 
to have got around her some way. I can’t 
bear to send her home. I love to have her 


104 


BETTY WALES 


here so, and then she will feel that it’s a 
punishment — and it is too — when it’s only 
that I have to do it, because I don’t know 
how to manage. I’ve tried to do more than I 
can. Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear ! ” Betty’s 
golden head sank down on the arm of the big 
chair, and her slender figure shook with her 
tears. 

It was thus that the Smallest Sister, flying 
up the stairs and bursting precipitately into 
the room she had left with such dignity, 
found her. 

“ Please go away. I’m t-tired. I’d rather 
be let alone,” Betty sobbed, evidently mis- 
taking the invader for somebody else. 

The Smallest Sister hesitated, then her soft 
little arms tugged at the prostrate figure. 
“ Please don’t cry,” she begged. “ Please 
listen to me, Betty. I know I’ve got to go 
home. I haven’t come to tease you to take it 
back — honestly I haven’t. But I’m going to 
tell you all about Shirley and Francisca and 
me. I’d rather. Please don’t cry any more, 
Betty dear.” 

Betty sat up, dabbing at her wet cheeks 
with a damp handkerchief. Dorothy offered 


ON THE CAMPUS 105 

her a dry one, and when Betty moved to one 
side of the big chair and smoothed down her 
skirts invitingly, the Smallest Sister climbed 
in beside her. Two in a chair is always the 
way to begin to make up. 

“ Now I'll tell you,” she began. “ You see 
Frisky had a spread for her four roommates 
in their study after the lights were out. She 
rooms ’way down at the end of the long cor- 
ridor, and they shut the door — that’s against 
the rules — and lit a candle, and trusted to 
luck that nobody would see it shining under- 
neath the door. Miss Carson — the one we 
call Kitty Carson, because she comes along so 
still — is their corridor teacher, and she 
doesn’t often bother to go ’way down to that 
end, unless there’s a noise. She didn’t that 
night, but Shirley woke up and was thirsty 
and wanted a drink. And on the way to 
where the table with the pitcher of ice-water 
is, she got lost, because the hall is pretty 
dark, and she saw the light under the door 
and knocked, and they started her back the 
right way. Next morning she was telling 
about it at breakfast, and Kitty Carson heard 
her, and asked her all about how she got 


106 BETTY WALES 

back, and Shirley told every single thing — 
about the spread and who was there and all. 
And so now Frisky has to stay in bounds for 
two weeks, and she can’t have any candy or a 
box from home till after Christmas. Kitty 
Carson wrote to say so — and that’s all, Betty 
dear. Frisky said she was sick of the subject, 
and not to mention it again, but of course she 
never meant not to tell you. I s’pose you 
have a good reason to want to know. I’m 
sorry you had to cry.” 

Betty leaned over and kissed the flushed, 
eager little face so close beside hers. 
“ Thank you for coming back,” she said. 
“ Now we’re good friends again, aren’t we?” 

Dorothy nodded. 

“ And do you want to know what I think ? ” 

Another nod. 

“ Well, I’m afraid you’ve all been very un- 
kind to Shirley. Have you called her tattle- 
tale, and shut her out of all the fun, and 
maybe made her cry ? ” 

This time the nod was very emphatic. 

“ We call her Tattle-tale Shirley. How 
did you ever guess that, Betty? And we 
don’t associate with her at all. And she cries 


ON THE CAMPUS 


107 

into her pillow at night, because she hears us 
whispering secrets and we leave her out. But, 
Betty, she ought to have to feel bad. It’s just 
mean to tell on another girl. Poor Frisky 
has to walk up and down the tennis-courts 
alone for her exercise hour, witli Kitty Carson 
watching out of her window to see that she 
does it. But she says she wouldn’t mind that. 
What she minds is thinking anybody could 
be so hateful that she’d go and tell.” 

“ But did Shirley mean to tell, or did she 
just get frightened and confused and speak 
before she thought ? ” 

“ Well,” the Smallest Sister admitted reluc- 
tantly, “ I s’pose maybe she got rather fright- 
ened. Kitty Carson looks at you so hard 
through her big specs that you generally do. 
But she had ought to have thought.” Dorothy 
was earnest if not grammatical. “ Frisky 
says she’d sooner be expelled from school her- 
self than get another girl into disgrace.” 

“ Frisky, as you call her, is older. Shirley 
is little and timid, and I’m sure she didn’t 
realize that she was saying anything wrong. 
Did she now' Dorothy? Tell me 'honest 
and true,’ what you think. Did she dis- 


108 BETTY WALES 

like Frisky, and want to get her into trou- 
ble ?” 

“ No-o, I s’pose not. She used to say she 
worshipped her just as much as I did.” 

“ Then do you think it’s quite fair to treat 
her as you have ? ” 

“ No-o, I guess maybe not. Frisky’s old 
chum, that she had before me, said it wasn’t, 
but I didn’t s’pose she knew. I’ll tell Frisky 
what you think, and I’ll tell Shirley that I 
forgive her if she truly didn’t mean it. Of 
course I can’t be chums with her again, be- 
cause now I’m chums with Frisky. But I 
won’t call her tattle-tale any more, and I’ll 
tell the others what you think.” The Small- 
est Sister sighed and slipped off the chair. 
“ I guess — I guess I’d better be going,” she 
said very softly. “ Were you — were you go- 
ing to have ice-cream for supper, maybe ? ” 

Betty stifled an impulse to take the appeal- 
ing little figure in her arms and promise her 
ice-cream and chicken patties and hot choco- 
late and all the other dainties she loved best. 
She had been a very naughty little girl, and 
mother would say 

The Smallest Sister, oddly enough, was also 


ON THE CAMPUS 


109 

thinking of mother. “ I guess it doesn’t mat- 
ter what you’re going to have,” she announced 
hastily. “ I guess mother would say I’d better 
go back and think it all over by myself 
quietly, and — and next time ’member to ask 
you first what you think about tattle-tales 
that don’t mean to be and — and perhaps 
come some other night for supper. Oh ” — 
her voice broke — “ I honestly forgot that I’m 
to go home.” 

“ But we’re friends again, now,” Betty told 
her, “ and you’re going to tell me things just 
as you always have. Aren’t you ? Will you, 
I mean, if I should think it over, and decide 
that it will be all right for you to stay ? ” 

“ Yes, I will. I will ask you about every 
least little thing I want to do,” declared Dor- 
othy earnestly. “ Do you think that maybe 
you’ll decide I may stay?” 

“ Yes, I think I’ll decide that you may 
stay,” laughed Betty. “ So don’t ever make 
me sorry that I’ve decided that way.” 

“ I won’t. I’m sure I won’t. I just hate 
to have you cry, Betty.” 

“ I think,” Betty told her with a very sober 
face, “ that you’d better not come for supper 


I IO 


BETTY WALES 


for two whole weeks. That will make you 
remember better perhaps. And when you 
come you may bring your new chum, if Miss 
Dick is willing.” 

“ Oh, goody for joy ! ” The Smallest Sister 
quite overlooked the penalty imposed on her- 
self in the idea of being able to do something 
for her dear, misused Frisky. 

She said good-bye contentedly, because she 
could tell Frisky the sooner by going home 
to tea, and she skip-hopped down-stairs and 
up the street much too gaily for a naughty 
little girl who had been deprived of a treat 
and sent away to think over her naughtiness 
in private. 

Betty watched her smilingly. “ I don't 
seem to be able not to spoil her,” she reflected. 
“ But she's just as sweet as she can be usually. 
And she came back of herself to tell me, and 
she really sent herself home, so I guess it's 
all right — that is, if this new chum is a nice 
girl. I do hope she is.” 

The Smallest Sister did not ask to be invited 
to supper before the appointed time, though 
two meals a week with Betty or Eugenia were 
her usual allowance, and she had grumbled 


ON THE CAMPUS 


1 1 1 


and even wept before, if anything had hap- 
pened to keep her away. 

“ Poor Francisca can’t even go to walk or 
down-town for two weeks, I guess I can give 
up one thing I like as long as that,” she told 
Eugenia, when that soft-hearted little person 
suggested intervening with Betty for a restora- 
tion of privileges. “ Francisca says it’s a 
comfort to her to feel that somebody else has 
troubles.” 

On the appointed evening Eugenia had a 
house-play rehearsal from five to six, a class 
officers’ meeting at quarter to seven, and a 
written lesson to cram for in Psych. 6. So 
Betty and the chums supped alone at a cun- 
ning little table by the Tally-ho’s famous fire- 
place. It was lighted with the “ extra-special ” 
candle-shades and there were new menu-cards 
with fat, rosy-faced, red-coated coachmen 
cracking long whips at the top, and an adora- 
ble sketch of the Peter Pan Annex growing 
up the left side. Bob Enderby had designed 
them — under protest, because he said he was 
much too famous to be doing menu-cards 
nowadays ; Madeline had colored them by 
hand, and the Tally-ho waitress had to keep 


I I 2 


BETTY WALES 


a sharp lookout to prevent their all being 
carried off for souvenirs. One was lost that 
very evening; yes, for the first time in the 
Tally-ho’s history, an extra-special candle- 
shade was missing at the close of the dinner- 
hour. 

Francisca and Dorothy arrived late and 
breathless — they had been kept to tidy their 
rooms, Dorothy explained, but Francisca 
shook her head playfully at her small friend 
and took all the blame. 

“ I’m always being kept for something,” 
she said cheerfully. “ It’s a perfect miracle 
that I’m here at all. If I don’t have to copy 
my French exercise one hundred times be- 
cause I didn’t pay attention in class, I have 
to learn ‘ Paradise Lost ’ because I contradicted 
Kit — Miss Carson, or else I don’t pick up my 
nightie and — well, I’m just always in hot 
water, Miss Wales. It was lovely of you to 
ask me. Please call me Frisky — everybody 
does.” 

Francisca was the prettiest girl — next to 
Eleanor Watson — that Betty had ever seen. 
Her eyes were soft and deep and very, very 
brown — like big chocolate creams. Her hair 


ON THE CAMPUS 


1 ! 3 


was dark and wavy, growing low down on 
her forehead in a widow's peak. She puffed 
it out around her face in a fashion that was 
too old for her, but was nevertheless very be- 
coming. Her manner was that of an older 
girl too — very assured and confident, but 
very charming. When she smiled, which she 
did most of the time, two big dimples showed. 
She lisped a little, and this gave a funny, 
childlike twist to her remarks, which were 
not at all childlike. She adopted a curious 
attitude of resignation toward the cruel fate 
that kept her always “ in hot water." She 
was sweetly forgiving toward those who had 
inflicted the two weeks' penance just ended, 
and she thanked Betty for her opinion, sent 
by Dorothy, about little Shirley Ware. She 
had entirely forgiven Shirley, she said, and 
she meant to forget about it and hoped Shirley 
would do the same. 

“ You see," she explained, “ all the little 
girls love me so that I imagine they did make 
her pretty uncomfortable. I never meant 
them to, Miss Wales, but you can't help being 
a favorite and having people champion your 
cause. Can you now ? " 


BETTT WALES 


1 14 

She made picturesquely vague references to 
some secret sorrow that was even worse than 
being in perpetual hot water at Miss Dick's. 
Afterward Betty inquired about it from 
Dorothy. 

“ Oh, she’s got a stepmother,” Dorothy ex- 
plained in awe-struck tones. “ They don’t 
get along well together. Frisky says she’s 
very unsympathetic.” Dorothy pulled out 
the long word with much difficulty. 

But for all her vanity and absurdity Frisky 
Fenton was a lovable creature. She was 
preeminently a “jolly girl.” She had comical 
names for all Miss Dick’s teachers. She hit 
off the peculiarities of her schoolmates, and 
told absurd stories about them. She noticed 
everything that went on around her and kept 
up a vivacious fire of comment. As soon as 
she forgot to affect resignation and the secret 
sorrow, she was most appreciative of all the 
pleasures life had to offer and particularly of 
the treat Betty had given her. Everything 
they had to eat was “ simply great,” the Tally- 
ho was “ exactly perfect,” Betty was “ too 
sweet,” and Dorothy “ a little darling.” 

Betty decided that she was only silly on 


ON THE CAMPUS 


”5 


top, and, though she much preferred Shirley 
as a best friend for Dorothy, she saw no reason 
to worry about Franciscans bad influence, 
especially as the Smallest Sister displayed 
much conscientiousness in the matter of com- 
ing to consult her big sister on all important 
matters. 

She came twice that very week. Once it 
was to ask if she should wear her best white 
dress, or only her second best blue one to 
Shirley's birthday party. Frisky had advised 
the best, under all the delicate circumstances, 
but Dorothy wanted to be quite sure. The 
next time a moral question was involved. If 
you were asked to a spread after bedtime was 
it wrong to go ? Betty, who detested prigs, 
dexterously evaded the issue. 

“ It's rather messy eating in the dark, and 
you must get awfully sleepy waiting for the 
teachers to go to bed. When you’ve all got 
desperately hungry for good eats let me know, 
and we’ll have a scrumptious spread at the 
Tally-ho.” 


CHAPTER VII 


THE DOLL WAVE 

The B. C. A. initiation was naturally a joy- 
ous occasion. To begin with, Babbie Hildreth 
was commanded to stand for half an hour out- 
side the tea-shop with a huge “ engaged ” 
sign pinned across her shoulders. She smiled 
composedly, waited patiently for the sign to 
be adjusted, and then, since no particular po- 
sition had been specified, mounted hastily to 
the top story of the Peter Pan Annex, where 
the yellowing leaves completely hid her from 
curious eyes. Eleanor was meanwhile led to 
the kitchen and told to make sugar-cookies 
after the family recipe. As she had never 
in her life made sugar-cookies — or any other 
kind — her demonstration proved entertaining 
enough to while away the half hour very pleas- 
antly. Then Babbie was called down, given 
one of Eleanor’s cookies, and told to keep on 
eating it until she could guess what it was 
meant to be. She ate it all, making many 
116 


ON THE CAMPUS 


117 

vain protests, and was only excused from 
sampling another because she threatened, in 
an irresistibly clever speech, to appeal to the 
Humane Society. Mary Brooks was next in- 
structed to write to the person whom she 
thought it most concerned, warning him 
about Eleanor’s lack of domestic accomplish- 
ments. Then Madeline read some “ Rules for 
the Engaged Member,” which were almost as 
funny as the “ Rules for the Perfect Patron.” 

Babbie had just been put in the most re- 
tired corner of the B. C. A/s stall and told 
to do her “ Mary-had-a-Little-Lamb ” stunt, 
when Georgia and the Dutton twins arrived 
upon the scene, hot from a tennis match and 
voicing a reckless determination to go straight 
through all the sundaes and cooling drinks 
on the new menu. 

“ We can sit with you, can’t we?” asked 
Straight Dutton. “ The other stalls all have 
people in them, and Fluffy’s hair is a disgrace 
to be seen.” 

“ Then take her out behind the house — or 
shop or barn, whatever you call it — and pin 
it up,” Madeline told them severely. “ Cer- 
tainly you can’t come in here. This is a B. 


1 1 8 BETTY WALES 

C. A. tea-drinking and initiation. You’re not 
B. C. A.’s.” 

“ That’s not our fault. It’s perfectly mean 
of you to have a secret society and leave us 
out,” wailed Fluffy. “ Think of all the or- 
ders we got you for skirt braids.” 

“ In this hard world, my children, virtue 
is often its only reward,” Mary reminded 
them sweetly. “ Run away now and play.” 

“ Let’s spite them by stalking out of their 
old tea-shop and transferring our valuable 
patronage to Cuyler’s,” suggested Georgia. 

“ I’m too tired to stir,” protested Fluffy. 
“ Let’s stay here and play a lovely party of 
our own right under their noses, and never 
ask them to come.” 

“ Let’s sit down quick.” 

“ Shall we begin with sundaes or lemon- 
ade?” 

“ With both,” announced Fluffy with de- 
cision, smiling so persuasively at Nora that 
she abandoned two fussy heads of depart- 
ments, who wanted more hot water, milk for 
their tea instead of lemon, and steamed muf- 
fins instead of toasted, while she supplied 
Fluffy, first with hairpins from the box that 


ON THE CAMPUS 


1 19 

Betty kept in her desk on purpose for such 
emergencies, and then with three sundaes and 
two cold drinks. 

Fluffy arranged the five glasses in an artis- 
tic crescent in front of her, and sipped and 
tasted happily. 

“ You’re not true sports,” she told the others, 
who had been content to begin with one or- 
der each. “ You won’t be hungry after the 
second thing you order — or maybe the third 
for Georgia-of-the-huge-appetite — and then 

you’ll stop, whereas I ” She waved her 

hand around the inviting crescent. “ The 
fateful check is made out, and I can eat ’em or 
leave ’em — it’s all the same to my pocketbook 
and the Tally-ho. I wish Betty Wales would 
come out and say if I’m not the Perfect Patron 
this trip.” 

“ Well, she won’t,” declared Straight prac- 
tically, “ and if she should you’d better re- 
member that it’s your duty to act very 
haughty and independent. Come on now 
and think up something nice for us to do.” 

“ Wish we knew what B. C. A. meant,” 
Georgia reflected. “ Then we could parody 
it.” 


120 


BETTT WALES 


“Well, we don't,” Straight reminded her 
sharply, “ so it’s no use wishing. We’ve worn 
ourselves out before this trying to guess. 
The thing to do is to think of some reg- 
ular picnic of a stunt that they’ll just 
wish they’d thought of first. Then they’ll 
respect us more, and realize what a mistake 
they made in having a snippy little 19 — 
society, when they might have had us in it 
too.” 

“ S-h ! ” ordered Fluffy impatiently. “ No- 
body can think of anything while you chat- 
ter along like that. Let’s keep perfectly 
still for five minutes — just eat and think. 
I’m sure we shall get at it that way. Geor- 
gia, you’ve got a watch that goes. Tell us 
when time’s up.” 

Georgia was too much occupied with keep- 
ing track of the time limit to hit upon an 
idea, and when Straight’s sundae gave out at 
the end of the second minute, she could not 
keep her eyes and her mind from a furtive 
consideration of the menu. So nobody in- 
terrupted Fluffy when, at Georgia’s “Time’s 
up,” she shot out a triumphant, “ I’ve got 
it!” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


121 


“ I’m not sure whether it’s four minutes or 
five/’ said Georgia anxiously, “ but if you’ve 
got it, Fluffy, fire away.” 

“ Well, only the general plan,” explained 
Fluffy modestly. “ I think we ought to set 
a silly fashion. We can — girls are like sheep, 
and we’ve made a reputation for doing in- 
teresting things that all the others wish they 
could do too. We can call the thing the 
1 C. I.’s ’ — that’s for Complete Idiots — and not 
tell a soul what it means until we’re ready to 
back out and let our devoted followers feel as 
silly as they have to. It will be a circus pre- 
tending to be keen for it ourselves and egging 
the others on, and it will just show the 
B. C. A.’s that we’re not as young and simple- 
minded as maybe they think us.” 

“ That sounds good to me,” agreed Georgia, 
“ only what fashion shall we set ? ” 

Fluffy frowned and rumpled her hair 
absently. “ I can’t think of anything silly 
enough. Big bows and pompadours and 
coronet braids and so on are as silly now 
as they possibly could be. Shoes without 
heels wouldn’t be extreme enough. Prexy 
wouldn’t let us wear a uniform, even if we 


122 


BETTY WALES 


could think of a ridiculous enough one. I 
guess it can’t be anything about dress.” 

“ Some fad for our desks, like ploshkins,” 
suggested Straight. 

“ Only not a bit copy-catted from that, be- 
cause some of the B. C. A.’s helped start 
ploshkins,” amended Georgia. 

“ Let’s take another think,” said Fluffy. 

“ Wait a minute,” begged Straight, and prov- 
idently ordered two more sundaes to span 
the terrible interval. 

“ You keep time on this thought,” ordered 
Georgia, passing her watch to Fluffy. 

Fluffy nodded abstractedly. 

“ Five minutes,” she announced presently. 
“ 1 can’t think of ” 

“ This time I’ve got it,” Georgia broke in 
eagerly. “ First I thought of a silly game 
like tops or marbles or skipping ropes, and 
then I thought of dolls — buying them and 
dressing them and carrying them around. I 
heard of a girls’ school that did it once in 
dead earnest.” She looked anxiously at 
Fluffy, who could “ get people excited over 
the fourth dimension if she wanted to.” 
“ What about it, Fluff? ” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


123 

Fluffy sipped from each of her five glasses 
reflectively before she answered. 

“ Dolls it is,” she said briefly at last. 
“ Come on down and buy ours now.” 

The straiglit-liaired twin had never played 
with dolls in her life, having scorned all fem- 
inine diversions and spent her youth chasing 
rabbits, riding her pony, or playing tag, 
hockey, and prisoner’s base with her brothers 
and her brothers’ friends. She chose the big- 
gest, most elegant, and expensive French doll 
in the shop, named her Rosa Marie on the 
spot, and paid for Georgia’s choice — a huge 
wooden doll with staring blue eyes and mat- 
ted black hair — on condition that Georgia 
would help her dress Rosa Marie. 

“ You’re actually getting fond of Rosa Marie 
already,” Georgia teased her. 

“ Maybe I am,” said Straight stoutly, “ but 
you’d better not fuss, when I’m spending such 
a lot to help along your game.” 

“ Lucky we’re starting on it so early in the 
month,” Fluffy said, a baby doll in a lace 
bonnet and a long white dress in one hand, 
and an Esquimaux, in white fur from head to 
foot, in the other. 


124 


BETTT WALES 


“ Get ’em both and come along,” advised 
Georgia. “ You’ll look terribly cute going 
home with one on each arm.” 

“ And if you get small ones you can be 
getting more all the time,” Straight took her 
up. “ Have a regular family, you know, and 
a carriage to take them out in, and a doll’s 
house to keep them in at home. A doll’s house 
would look great in your room, Fluffy dear.” 

“ It’s so bare and cheerless that it just 
needs a doll’s house,” declared Georgia. “ I 
dare you to buy one and put it on your royal 
Bokara rug, between your teakwood table and 
your Dutch tee-stopf, with your best Whis- 
tler print hanging over it.” 

Fluffy turned to the saleswoman. “ These 
two, please,” she said, “ and let me see your 
largest, loveliest doll’s house.” 

The organizers and charter members of the 
C. I.’s tramped home in the autumn twi- 
light, quarreling amiably about the relative 
advantages of “ risking ” to-morrow’s Logic 
quiz and writing “ Lit.” papers between 
breakfast and chapel, or making a night of 
it — and in that case should the doll-dressing 
come before or after ten ? 


ON THE CAMPUS 


I2 5 


“ I can’t * risk ’ Logic,” Straight confessed 
sadly. “ I’ve been warned already. Don’t 
make me sit up all by myself to cram. I’d 
almost rather not dress Rosa Marie to-night 
than do that.” 

Just then they ran into Eugenia Ford com- 
ing out of the Music Building. 

“ Hello, Miss Ford,” Georgia greeted her 
pleasantly. “ Look at Fluffy’s dolls. Have 
you got one yet? ” 

Eugenia, somewhat dazed by the sudden- 
ness of the onslaught, went into raptures over 
the baby doll, blushingly acknowledged that 
she hadn’t one, and begged for more light on 
the matter. 

“ Oh, well, you’re not so far behind the 
times,” Fluffy consoled her sweetly. “ The 
limit is day after to-morrow, isn’t it, Georgia ? 
If you get one all ready by then, you can join 
the C. I.’s.” 

“ What in the world is that?” demanded 
Eugenia eagerly. 

“ I believe the meaning’s to be a secret for 
a while,” Straight explained solemnly, “ but 
if you have a doll you can belong ; that I’m 
sure of. We’ve got ours here.” She patted 


126 


BETTY WALES 


Rosa Marie, and pointed to Georgia's un- 
gainly parcel. “ It's sure to be fun. Any- 
way, we're all for it." 

“ It sounds just splendid," declared Eu- 
genia, who still had aspirations toward in- 
timacy with the jolliest, most exclusive crowd 
in Harding. “ It's lovely of you to tell me 
about it. Can anybody — can I tell my 
friends ? " 

The conspirators exchanged glances. De- 
mocracy would repel Eugenia. To her the 
C. I.'s must be made to appear highly exclu- 
sive. 

“ Ye-es," Fluffy said at last. “ It's for any- 
body — that is anybody you’d ask. The dolls 
have got to be dressed by day after to-morrow, 
you know. Straight's is going to be a perfect 
wonder. We're thinking of having a doll- 
show later, so you'd better take some pains 
with yours. Good-night." 

“ I wonder if the stores are closed yet," 
added Straight loudly as Eugenia started off. 
“ I ought to have bought some real lace for 
Rosa Marie's petticoat." 

“ Let's go back, even if we are late to din- 
ner," declaimed Georgia distinctly. “ By to- 


ON THE CAMPUS 


12 7 


morrow everybody in the place will be rush- 
ing down for dolls and dolls' dresses, and 
they'll be dreadfully picked over." 

The conspirators paused to watch the effect 
of their sallies, and subsided, overcome with 
mirth, on the Music Building steps, when lit- 
tle Eugenia walked more slowly, halted, and 
finally turned down the hill toward Main Street. 

“ She's not going to be at the tail of any 
procession of Complete Idiots," chuckled 
Georgia. “ Oh, I say, here comes Christabel 
Porter ! Let's tackle her." 

Christabel Porter was a lanky, spectacled 
senior with a marvelous memory, a passion 
for scientific research, a deep hatred of per- 
sons who misnamed helpless infants, and a 
whole-hearted contempt for the frivolity of 
the Dutton twins and their tribe. She re- 
spected Georgia, making an exception of her 
because she always wore her hair plain and 
never indulged in any kind of feminine fur- 
belows. 

“ No use," objected Fluffy. “ Let’s go 
along to dinner so we can get through and 
begin on Rosa Marie's clothes." 

“ We've got all night," said Georgia easily, 


128 


BETTY WALES 


“ if we need it. Let's have a try at the im- 
possible. Hello, Christabel. Have you been 
buying one too ? ” 

Christabel squinted near-sightedly at the 
trio. “ Oh, it’s you,” she said. “ What on 
earth are you doing up here on those cold 
steps, when it’s past six already ? ” 

“ Talking to you,” Fluffy told her sweetly, 
holding the Esquimaux up against the west- 
ern light and smoothing the baby’s skirts os- 
tentatiously. 

Christabel squinted harder. “ Dolls ! ” she 
scoffed at last. “ What on earth are you up 
to now ? ” 

“ Georgia’s is the biggest,” said Straight 
sulkily. “ Tell her about the C. I.’s, Georgia. 
You were the one that thought of it. It’s 
nothing to blame us about.” 

Christabel listened to the tale in bewil- 
dered silence. At the conclusion she gave a 
deep sigh. “ Count me in,” she said. “ I’m 
thinking of taking a Ph. D. in psychology 
at Zurich next winter. I guess this is as good 
an experiment on the play instinct as I’m 
likely to run up against.” She sighed again 
deeply. “ Of all the queer unaccountable re- 


OAT THE CAMPUS 


129 


actions I If it was after midyears, perhaps I 

could understand it, but now Don’t tell 

any one else that I’m studying it, please ; they 
wouldn’t be quite natural if they knew. 
Where do you buy dolls? ” 

That evening the Belden House was in a 
flutter of excitement. The Dutton twins were 
in Georgia’s room with the door locked. 
Fluffy’s dolls were reposing on her bed, care- 
fully pillowed on two lace-edged sachets. 
The doll’s house was delivered about eight 
o’clock, and most of the paper was torn off* it 
in some way or other before Fluffy saw it. 
Georgia sternly refused to open the door to 
any one. The sound of cheerful conversation, 
laughter, and little squeals of pleasurable ex- 
citement floated out over the transom. 
Plainly the Dutton twins and Georgia Ames 
were not studying Logic — or they were study- 
ing it after peculiar methods of their own. 
Furthermore, Fluffy’s note-book was lying 
conspicuously on her table, and Barbara West 
had borrowed Georgia’s, and was almost in 
tears over its owner’s curt refusal to come out 
and explain what Barbara angrily described 
as “ two pages of hen scratches about undis- 


130 


BETTY WALES 


tributed middle, and that was just what I 
didn’t get ! ” 

When the quarter to ten warning-bell jan- 
gled through the Belden House halls, Georgia 
threw her room hospitably open. With 
magic celerity it filled up with curious girls, 
who stared in amazement at the spectacle of 
Straight Dutton rocking a huge doll to sleep, 
laughed at Wooden’s mussy wig and checked 
gingham apron — “ Exactly like the ones I 
used to have to wear,” Georgia explained pa- 
thetically, “and the other girls laughed at me 
just that way ” — and noisily demanded expla- 
nations of the absurd trio’s latest eccentricity. 
Next morning alarm clocks went off extra 
early, Main Street swarmed with Belden House 
girls on a before-chapel quest for dolls, the 
toy-shop proprietor telegraphed a hurry order 
to the nearest doll factory, and surreptitious 
examination of queer, hunchy bundles broke 
the tension of the Logic quiz and blocked the 
hallways between classes. 

That afternoon there were doll-dressing bees 
at every campus house, and Fluffy’s doll-tea 
in Jack o’ Hearts’ stall was the centre of in- 
terest at the Tally-ho Tea-Shop. 


ON THE CAMPUS 131 

A pleasant vagueness about the C. I.’s con- 
tinued to pervade the speech of its founders. 
Nobody seemed to know exactly where or 
when the first meeting would be held. But, 
quite irrespective of the club or the mystic 
time-limit imposed for membership, the doll 
fad took possession of Harding. It was a red 
letter day for the conspirators when the junior 
class president, an influential young person 
who prided herself on her independence of 
character, appeared on the platform at class 
meeting, with her doll in her arms. The col- 
lege poetess, who went walking alone and had 
had several of her verses printed in a real 
magazine — sure signs of genius — took her 
darling doll to call on the head of the Eng- 
lish Department, with whom she was very in- 
timate. A maid who went to the door with 
hot water for the tea declared “ cross her 
heart ” that she saw Miss Raymond with the 
doll on her lap, undressing it, “just like any 
kid.” However that might have been, the 
poetess continued to be great friends with 
Miss Raymond ; evidently the doll episode 
had not “queered” her with that august 
lady. 


132 


BETTT WALES 


So the doll wave swept the college. Spreads 
became doll parties, French lingerie was reck- 
lessly cut up into doll dresses, girls who had 
never sewed a stitch in their lives labored 
over elaborate doll costumes, and on warm 
October afternoons the campus resembled a 
mammoth doll market, with Paradise as an 
annex for exclusive little parties. Tennis 
matches and basket-ball games were watched 
by doll-laden spectators, and some of the best 
athletes actually refused to go into their 
autumnal class meets because it took too 
much time when the doll parties were so 
much more fun. 

Christabel Porter showed Georgia, in strict 
confidence, the tabulated results of her obser- 
vations. 

“ Insane, one,” it read ; “ still infantile, all 
freshmen, nearly all sophomores, many juniors 
and seniors ; slavish copy-cats, practically all 
the rest of the college ; can't be accounted for, 
three.” 

“ The one,” she explained, “ is the college 
poetess, and the three are you and the Dut- 
tons. You’re not infants, you’re not stupid, 
you’re not exactly crazy, you’re far from 


ON THE CAMPUS 


*33 

being copy-cats. I don't understand you at 
all.” 

“ You never will, Christabel,” Georgia told 
her sweetly, “ no matter if you take a dozen 
Ph. D.’s in Psych, at Zurich. But you 
shall presently understand the C. I.’s. There 
is a meeting in my room to-morrow at 
two.” 

“Won’t it be rather crowded?” inquired 
Christabel anxiously, glancing around Geor- 
gia’s particularly minute and very much lit- 
tered “ single.” 

Georgia smiled enigmatically. “ Oh, it 
won’t take long, I think. It means so much 
red tape to arrange for a more official place, 
like the gym or the Student’s Building hall. 
The back campus would do, only the weather 
man says rain for to-morrow.” 

Next morning Georgia and the Duttons cut 
Logic (except Straight, who dared not), Lit., 
and Zoology lab. 

By noon Georgia’s walls were ablaze with 
effective decorations. “ Complete Idiots,” 
printed in every color of the rainbow, was 
interspersed with sketches of every conceiv- 
able type of girl playing with every possible 


I 34 


BETTT WALES 


variety of doll. Straight could draw, if she 
could not adorn a Logic class. Fluffy and 
Georgia sighed to think that other people's 
“ memorabils ” would be enriched with these 
fascinating trophies. 

At a few minutes before one Straight and 
Fluffy slipped unostentatiously down-town in 
the rain to have lunch at a small new place 
where there would be no gamut of inquiry to 
run about the afternoon's plans. Georgia 
meanwhile locked her door and waited until 
the house was at lunch, when she let herself 
out, posted a sign, reading, “ Please don't 
disturb until two o’clock,” hurried down-town 
by a back way, and joined the Duttons just 
in time to gobble a sandwich or two before 
the next train to the Junction. 

On the station platform they met Madeline 
and Babbie Hildreth. 

“ Where are you going? " demanded Made- 
line. 

“ To the big city to buy Georgia a turban 
swirl,” Fluffy told them with a smile. 

“ I thought your C. I. blow-out was to-day,” 
said Madeline innocently. 

“ Oh-ho ! ” cried Georgia. “ So you do take 


ON THE CAMPUS 


*35 


some interest in our society, though you 
haven’t appeared to. You’ll take more by 
to-morrow. Why don’t you go to the meet- 
ing? You’ve just got time. I know they’d 
vote to set aside the entrance requirements in 
favor of such distinguished persons as your- 
selves.” 

“ But why ” began Babbie. 

“ Georgia can’t live another minute without 
a turban swirl,” jeered Straight, climbing on 
to the train before it had fairly stopped. 

11 Tell all inquiring friends that we deeply 
regret not being able to be present at the fatal 
moment,” added Georgia. 

“ Be a dear, Madeline, and go, so you can 
tell us how they took it,” begged Fluffy. 

“ There are perfectly lovely souvenirs,” 
chanted the trio in chorus, as their train 
pulled out. 

The organizers of the C. I.’s witnessed part 
of the matinge. Georgia and Straight bought 
a blue chiffon waist in partnership, and 
Fluffy, from force of habit, bought a Chinese 
doll. They had an early dinner to conform 
as far as possible to the rules about being 
chaperoned in town after dark, and they ar- 


BETTY WALES 


136 

rived in Harding again, tired and damp but 
expectant, soon after seven. 

At the Tally-ho they stopped to find out, 
if possible, what sort of reception they were 
likely to get further on. Madeline welcomed 
them joyously. 

“ I went,” she said, 11 and I knew you’d 
want me to take charge in your absence, so I 
did. Everybody who got a souvenir ” — she 
pointed to hers, decorating the wall back of 
the famous desk — “ is happy. Others are 
amused or wrathful according to the stage of 
development of their sense of humor. Christa- 
bel Porter sent word that she understands 
you less than ever. The poetess almost wept 
at such desecration of her idyllic amusement. 
About two hundred girls came, and the rest 
of the college either tried to and couldn’t get 
inside the Belden House door, or wept at home 
because of their ineligibility. Mary Brooks 
wept too, because her famous rumor stunt 
isn’t in it any longer with this gallery play of 
yours. She wants you three to come to din- 
ner to-morrow — Professor Hinsdale is away — 
and tell her all about it.” 

“ Thanks,” said the trio nonchalantly. 


ON THE CAMPUS 


J 3 7 


“ Don’t you think we’re pretty nearly smart 
enough to belong to the B. C. A.’s?” de- 
manded Georgia tartly at last. 

“ The B. C. A.’s ? ” repeated Madeline. 
“ Oh, was that what you were venting your 
beautiful sarcasm on ? We thought you were 
hitting all those new department societies 
that everybody is making such a silly fuss 
about getting into.” 

The trio exchanged glances. 

“ It was partly that,” admitted Georgia. 
“ We’ve absolutely sworn off from being in 
such things ourselves, or sending violets, 
except to girls who make Dramatic Club or 
Clio — the real big honors, you know.” 

“ And have you also sworn off from going 
to the celebration dinners?” inquired Made- 
line with a wicked smile. 

“ We haven’t decided about that,” Georgia 
informed her with dignity. “ But please 
don’t forget,” she added solemnly, “ that your 
crowd began this foolish club idea, and has 
done a lot to develop it. It was you princi- 
pally that we meant to hit off.” 

Madeline grinned. “ I really wish you were 
eligible to the B. C. A.’s,” she said, “ because 


BETTY WALES 


138 

then we could see how manfully you would 
resist temptation. But it will be at least a 
year before you can any of you possibly meet 
— well, we’ll call it the age limit. So don’t 
waste time hunting over the bulletin-boards 
for a notice of your election.” 

“ We are generally considered rather frivo- 
lous,” Georgia told her severely, “ but we do 
stick to our principles — of which the anti- 
club idea is one that we cherish greatly.” 

“ Though you’ve very recently acquired it,” 
murmured Madeline. 

“ Very,” agreed Georgia cheerfully. “ Good- 
night.” 

Outside the bewildered Dutton twins sorrow- 
fully took Georgia to task for spoiling forever 
their chances with the B. C. A.’s. 

“ Are you crazy ? ” demanded Straight. 

“ Don’t you remember why we started the 
whole doll business ? ” asked Fluffy. 

Georgia, who had been rather absent and 
constrained during the afternoon’s adventures, 
gazed at them pityingly. “ You little in- 
nocents ! ” she said at last. “ Can’t you see 
what she’s done for us? Imagine the mud 
that two hundred girls have tracked through 


ON THE CAMPUS 


i39 


the Belden House halls. Imagine the rage of 
the matron, and the things that some of the 
faculty prigs will say about this whole busi- 
ness. I’ve been worried to death all day, to 
tell you the truth. But now we don’t have to 
care. We’re reformers. We’re disciples of 
the simple life, giving demonstrations of the 
foolishness of over-organization. We’re sorry 
about the mud and all that, of course. We’re 
— anyhow, I demand the satisfaction of telling 
Christabel Porter the truth about us. I can’t 
bear to have her explain us wrong, after all 
her trouble.” Georgia splashed into a puddle 
and exclaimed angrily at the incident. 
“ What in Christendom can B. C. A. stand 
for?” she muttered wrathfully, stamping off 
the mud. 

“ Who cares ? ” cried Straight, splashing 
into a puddle herself for sheer bravado. 

“ Who indeed ? ” Fluffy took her up. 
“ I’ve had a thought, Georgia. Let’s keep on 
playing dolls. Then Christabel Porter can’t 
explain us at all. She’ll be too mixed up to 
ever go to Zurich.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


MORE ARCHITECT’S PLANS, AND A MYSTERY 

One lovely afternoon in late October, Jim 
Watson, arrayed in very correct riding clothes, 
poked his head gingerly into Betty’s office, 
and having thus made quite sure that she was 
alone, stepped briskly inside and stood smil- 
ing quizzically down at her over the top of 
her big desk. 

“ What’s the joke to-day ? ” Betty inquired, 
smiling frankly back at him. 

“ Same old joke,” said Jim, leaning his el- 
bow comfortably on a pile of pamphlets. 
“ Small person with a generally frivolous ap- 
pearance, sitting at the biggest roller-top desk 
on the market, flanked on the right by a filing 
cabinet and on the left by a typewriter. Vast 
correspondence strewn over desk. Brow of 
small person puckered in deep thought. 
Dimple of small ” 

“ That’s quite enough,” interrupted Betty 
140 


ON THE CAMPUS 


141 


severely. “ I am not a joke, except to really 
frivolous persons like you, and I refuse to 
have my time wasted listening to such non- 
sense. Where’s Eleanor ? ” 

Jim sighed deeply. “ Where is Eleanor, 
indeed ? Paying calls, known as ‘ friendly 
visits/ on the families of her Terrible Ten — 
her young Italians. I thought she came up 
here to comfort and amuse my leisure hours, 
but that’s certainly not what she’s staying on 
for. Is this your day for office hours ? ” 

“ No-o,” Betty admitted doubtfully, “ but I 
thought I’d stay and ” 

“ Please think again,” Jim coaxed in his 
most beguiling fashion. “ It’s a gorgeous 
afternoon. Please come for a ride.” 

“ But ” 

“ I’ve engaged Hartman’s best horses — the 
big bay for me and the little black Queen, 
that you Harding girls are so crazy about, for 
you.” 

“ 1 thought Virginia Day had Queen every 
afternoon.” 

“ Not when I want her. I’m a privileged 
person at Hartman’s, because I rode every 
day last summer.” 


142 


BETTr WALES 


“ Well, but you see ” 

“ If you come I'll tell you a grand secret.” 

“ About Morton Hall ? ” demanded Betty 
eagerly. 

4< No fair guessing. Will you come ? ” 

Betty looked at him hard, and then out the 
window at the campus, sparkling in the au- 
tumn sunshine. “ Oh, Jim, yes ! I can’t re- 
sist such a very nice party. How soon can 
we start ? ” 

“ How soon can you be ready ? ” 

In a flash Betty had snapped down the lid 
of the absurdly big desk, closed the filing cab- 
inet, adjusted the typewriter top, and picked 
up a book and her keys. “ In ten minutes,” 
she said, bundling Jim out ahead of her and 
locking the door. “ If you should have to 
wait, you can be finding me a switch for a 
riding-crop. Mine’s broken. See you in ten 
minutes.” And she was off down the hill to 
change her dress. 

Jim watched her lithe little figure out of 
sight, and then strode off to get the horses, 
whistling loudly. It was a triumph, even 
with the assistance of Queen and the promise 
of a secret, to have lured Betty Wales from 


ON THE CAMPUS 


H3 

her official duties for a whole long, sunshiny 
afternoon. 

They galloped out of town at a pace to 
scandalize the sedate dwellers on Elm Street. 
Where the road passed the Golf Club, under 
the flickering shade of tall oaks, Betty drew 
up to a walk and leaned forward to pat 
Queen’s glossy neck. 

“ That was perfectly splendid, Jim,” she de- 
clared. “ Doesn’t it make you wish you were 
a bird?” 

“ Makes me think I’m a bird when I go 
cross-country out in Colorado, over a meadow 
of soft, springy turf, and then splash through 
a brook, and out into the first real shade 
I’ve seen for a week, maybe. Makes me 
wish I was a cow-puncher when I think of 
it now.” 

“ Then you couldn’t be the distinguished 
architect of Morton Hall,” Betty reminded 
him gaily. “ Tell me the grand secret, 
Jim.” 

Jim looked disappointed. He had hoped 
she would forget about the secret. “ Oh, it’s 
not so much,” he said. “ Only if your august 
Highness wishes to eat her Thanksgiving din- 


H4 


BETTY WALES 


ner in Morton Hall, Morton Hall will be 
ready for her.” 

“ Jim ! How splendid I Are you perfectly 
sure? ” 

Jim nodded grimly. “ I’ve slaved and I’ve 
made the men slave, and we didn’t do it for 
the peppery Mr. Morton, either. We did it 
for you, because you seemed to think a few 
days would make such a big difference. Well, 
they do — in a way, of course.” 

“ How do you mean ? ” asked Betty inno- 
cently. 

“ I mean,” declared Jim earnestly, “ that 
I’m a self-sacrificing person, if ever there was 
one. I’ve deliberately cut myself out of 
days and weeks of good times here in Har- 
ding ” 

“ Oh, Jim ! ” Betty flashed him a merry 
smile. “ Please don’t be silly. You know 
you’re fond of your work and anxious to go 
where it takes you, and just puffed up with 
pride to think that you’ve beaten the time 
limit your firm had set. Why, Jim, Thanks- 
giving is only four weeks off ! ” 

“ I know it,” gloomily. 

“And the list of Morton Hall girls isn’t 


ON THE CAMPUS 145 

half made out. The matron will manage the 
moving-in, I suppose — arranging furniture 
and engaging maids, and all. When can the 
moving-in begin, Jim?” 

“ Saturday before Thanksgiving,” still 
gloomily. 

“ We must have a grand housewarming,” 
Betty declared. “ The B. C. A.’s have decided 
on that already, but of course Madeline 
couldn’t have an inspiration till she knew the 
date, so she could think of something appro- 
priate. A Thanksgiving housewarming will 
certainly be appropriate for that house. 
You’ll stay for it, won’t you, Jim? ” 

“ Thanks,” darkly. 

Betty considered, frowning absently. “If 
it’s a costume party, — and most of Madeline’s 
nicest ideas are — why, of course, you probably 
can’t come. That will be a perfect shame, 
after the way you’ve worked. We’ll have to 
have another special housewarming for you 
and Mr. Morton.” 

“Thanks awfully.” 

Jim’s horse seemed to be giving him a great 
deal of trouble. It had edged to the extreme 
other side of the road and was curveting and 


BETTY WALES 


146 

plunging nervously. Betty turned Queen to 
the other side after him. 

“ What's the matter with Ginger ? ” she 
asked. 

“ Oh, nothing," Jim assured her coldly. 
“ He's just wondering whether this is a real 
ride or only a political procession." 

Betty laughed and started Queen into a 
canter. “ Why didn’t you say you were tired 
of walking, silly ? " she demanded. Then 
suddenly she had an idea. “ Of course you 
know I shall miss you, Jim," she said. 
“ We’re too good friends to bother with saying 
things like that, when we both know them." 

“ Just as you say about that," said Jim with 
a sudden return of his smile. “ But candidly 
now, Betty, aren’t you too busy to miss people 
much ? " 

“ When I’m too busy to have friends," 
Betty told him earnestly, “ I shall just stop 
being busy. Life wouldn’t be worth living 
without friends." 

“ But you’ve got such a lot, haven’t you ? " 
Jim asked, idly flicking at the scarlet sumach 
leaves with his crop. They were walking 
again now. 




ON THE CAMPUS 


H7 

“ Aliy college girl has a lot, and any college 
man. Haven’t you ? ” 

Jim nodded. “ I was just thinking that 

one, more or less ” 

“ Jim ! ” Betty’s tone was highly indig- 
nant. “ You’re fishing ! But you act so blue 
to-day, and you’ve worked so hard for Morton 
Hall, that I’ll just ask you a question. 
Which one of your good friends, 1 more or 
less,’ doesn’t matter ? ” 

Jim laughed. “ You’re right, of course. I 
do get blue — it runs in the family, I guess. 
Eleanor’s that way, too.” 

“ She’s not half as silly as you are,” laughed 
Betty. “ But seriously, Jim, I don’t know 
what I shall do when you go. You’re such a 
splendid safety-valve. And then these glo- 
rious rides ” 

“ We’ve had only two ” 

“ There you go again,” sighed Betty. “ Do 
you expect a busy person like me to 
take whole afternoons off every single week ? 
Oh, dear ! Aren’t those bittersweet berries 
on the vines growing over those little 
trees ? ” 

“ I don’t know anything about the habits 


BETTY WALES 


148 

or appearance of bittersweet berries, but I’ll 
bring you some.” 

He was back in a few minutes with a bunch 
of the pretty red berries. Betty looked at 
them closely. “ Oh, it is bittersweet ! ” she 
cried. “ Madeline and Emily want some most 
dreadfully for the copper jar at the Tally-ho. 
Could we carry a few sprays back, do you 
think ? ” 

“ Carry a bushel, if you like,” Jim declared. 
“ But first — there’s a trail up there that starts 
off through the woods. What do you say to 
trying it ? ” 

They rode as far as they could under the 
red and yellow boughs, and when the trail 
stopped Jim discovered a grove of walnut 
trees, and Betty declared that proved they 
were almost up Walnut Mountain. So they 
tied the horses and climbed the rest of the 
way, up a steep, pebbly path, hearing a par- 
tridge whirr on the way and scattering a 
whole family of lively little chipmunks who 
ran ahead of them, scolding angrily at so un- 
warrantable an intrusion of their private 
playground. They arrived panting at the 
top at last, and stayed so long looking at the 


ON THE CAMPUS 


149 


view that they felt obliged to run all the way 
down to the horses. Then Jim showed Betty 
how to pack a “ bushel ” of bittersweet be- 
hind her saddle for the Tally-ho, and tied 
another bunch on his for Morton Hall. They 
cantered all the way home in the crisp, frosty 
dusk, and Jim, in answer to Betty’s mocking 
inquiry about his blues, declared it had been 
such a ripping afternoon that he believed 
they were lost forever in the Bay of the 
Ploshkin. 

Betty dined at the Tally-ho, with Madeline, 
Straight Dutton, and Georgia. 

“ We’ve found a perfect Morton Hall-ite for 
you,” Georgia informed her eagerly. “Just 
exactly the kind you want, and she hadn’t 
applied and wasn’t going to.” 

“Who is she?” demanded Betty. “And 
will she come ? ” 

“ Binks Ames didn’t ask her because she 
was afraid she’d muddle it,” Georgia ex- 
plained lucidly, putting the cart before the 
horse. “ Binks discovered her, and told us to 
tell you. She’s in the infirmary — Binks, I 
mean, and the other girl, too. Got the 
mumps, Binks has, and the other one had 


1 5 ° 


BETTY WALES 


rheumatism or something. Binks is my 
freshman cousin — the peculiar one from 
Boston. Her real name is Elizabeth B. 
Browning Ames — after the poetess. Her 
mother goes in for Browning classes and 
things, but Binks is the soul of prose.” 

“ Tell her about the Morton Hall-ite,” ad- 
vised Straight. “ Binks hasn’t anything to 
do much with it.” 

“ That’s so,” agreed Georgia placidly, “ but 
she’s rather an interesting person, and Betty 
ought to meet her. She’s the kind that’s al- 
ways discovering things — just the way she 
discovered this girl.” 

“ Georgia,” declared Madeline amiably, “ I 
always knew you had a weakness, of course — 
all mortal creatures have. Now I’ve dis- 
covered that it’s a weakness for family his- 
tory. In order to start you on the right track 
let me ask you a leading question. What are 
the Morton Hall-ite’s name, class, and qualifi- 
cations for admission ? ” 

“Name unknown, class unknown, qualifi- 
cations extreme general forlornness, and a 
boarding place at the end of nowhere.” 

“ Where is that ? ” asked Betty smilingly. 


ON THE CAMPUS 


151 

“ Oh, Binks didn’t dare ask,” explained 
Georgia. “ You see Binks knows she’s an 
awful blunderer at being nice to people.” 

“Then how ” began Betty. 

“ Oh, that’s all arranged,” explained 
Georgia easily. “ You can come with me to- 
morrow when I go to see Binks, and if we ex- 
plain a little to the matron she’ll let you in to 
see the other one. Everybody is sorry for 
her, because she seems so blue and for- 
lorn, and never gets calls or flowers or 
letters.” 

“ She sounds rather formidable, some way,” 
Betty demurred. “ I think it would be better 
for one of the faculty members of the board to 
go and see her and ask her.” 

“ But I promised Binks I’d bring you. 
You can at least cheer up the other one, and 
if you funk on asking her then you can send 
a faculty later.” 

“ That reminds me that there isn’t going to 
be any too much 1 later.’ ” Betty told them 
the great news, ending with, “ So please plan 
a scrumptious housewarming right away, 
Madeline.” 

And Madeline promised, grumbling, how- 


I 5 2 


BETTY WALES 


ever, about the constant interruptions to 
which her aspiring genius was subject. 

“ You want a housewarming,” she wailed. 
“ Eleanor wants a masque for the Terrible 
Ten. Mary wants an alumnse stunt for 
Dramatic Club’s June meeting. Dick Blake 
wants a pantomime for the Vagabonds’ 
ladies’ night. So it goes ! And the worst of 
it is that the editors sternly refuse to want 
anything of me — except the Sunday Supple- 
ment people, and they want nothing but 
Vapor for the Vacant-Minded. I’m losing 
my mind — what little I have — trying to 
make the articles sound silly enough.” 

Betty went next day with Georgia to see 
Binks Ames, who proved to be a thin, brown 
little freshman, with wonderful gray eyes and 
a friendly, impulsive manner. 

“ It’s queer about me,” she told them. “ I 
seem to attract freaks. All my friends at 
school were queer unfortunates that my 
brothers fussed at having to take around 
when they came to visit me. And now the 
first thing I’ve done at Harding is to have 
mumps at the same time with Miss Ellison, 
who writes poems ” 


ON THE CAMPUS 153 

“ Technically known as the C. P., or College 
Poet,” Georgia interrupted. 

“ And a queer scientific person with a bulg- 
ing forehead and a squint, named Jones. We 
weren't any of us very sick, and we sat and 
talked by the hour, and hit it off beautifully. 
And now they've gone ” — she lowered her 
voice — “ there’s the Mystery. We named her 
that because she spooked around and never 
came near us, except by mistake. But the 
last two days, since we’ve been here alone, 
we’ve become quite dangerously chummy, and 
she’s told me things to make your heart 
ache.” 

The sympathetic thrill in Binks’ voice ex- 
plained sufficiently why unfortunates always 
sought her out, and her next remark gave 
further testimony to her real genius for friend- 
ship. “ I never let them see that I under- 
stand. It would scare them off. I act as if 
they were like everybody else. Seeing that 
people know you’re a freak or an unfortunate 
only makes you more of a one, don’t you 
think ? But Georgia has told me that you 
are the kind that can straighten things out — 
not just let the poor things stick to you 


i54 


BETTY WALES 


like burrs and try to make up to them, the 
silly way I do. Now, Georgia, you’d better 
wait here. I’ll take Miss Wales in to her 
myself, and then you’ll be an excuse for me 
to get away and leave her there.” 

The Mystery was crouching by a west win- 
dow, looking out at Paradise, with the low 
sun tangled in the yellow elms on the hill 
beyond. She was tall and slight and stooped, 
with a muddy complexion and a dull, ex- 
pressionless face. She flushed uncomfortably 
when she saw them, and received Biliks’ 
stammered explanation about wanting to 
share her callers with stolid indifference. 
Left alone with her, Betty remembered Anne 
Carter, the girl with the scar, and wished 
she had made Binks tell her what in this 
girl’s life had left her so frightened and hope- 
less and so bitterly reticent. She was a junior. 
She lived on Porter Hill — about a mile from 
the campus. She didn’t mind the walk ; you 
could count it in your exercise hours. She 
was not particularly interested in any study ; 
she just took what seemed best. If you meant 
to teach it wasn’t wise to specialize too much ; 
you might have to take a position for Latin 


ON THE CAMPUS 


*SS 


or Algebra when you had applied for History. 
She would prefer to teach English herself. 
Betty had brought Binks a new “ Argus ” to 
read. She asked the Mystery — her name was 
Esther Bond — if she had seen Helena Mason’s 
new story. 

“ It’s awfully clever,” she said. “ All her 
stories sound so knowing, some way, as if she 
had seen and done lots of unusual story-book 
sort of things. They have what Miss Ray- 
mond calls atmosphere and the note of reality.” 

“ Yes,” said Miss Bond. 

“ She’s in your class, isn’t she?” Betty rat- 
tled on. “Do you know her? ” 

“ Yes, 1 know her.” 

“ Is she really as unusual and fascinating 
as her stories seem ? ” Betty pursued. 

“ I consider her one of the most common- 
place girls in Harding,” said Miss Bond 
stolidly. 

“ Well, at least you’ve at last said some- 
thing besides yes and no,” Betty reflected, 
and turned the talk to Binks, the infirmary 
regime, and finally to campus life. 

When at last, having decided that nothing 
was to be gained by delay, she made her sug- 


BETTY WALES 


X S 6 

gestion about Miss Bond’s coming into Morton 
Hall, the Mystery laughed a queer, rasping 
laugh. 

“ I knew that’s what you were getting at,” 
she said. “ You’re the new secretary. I’m 
not so out of things that I don’t know that.” 

“ And you’ll come?” Betty asked cordially. 

“ I think not. I’d rather be out of the 
campus fun altogether than in it on charity.” 

Betty explained as tactfully as possible the 
difference between what she called Mr. Mor- 
ton’s kindness and what was sometimes meant 
by charity, and suggested a few of the advan- 
tages to be gained from living on the campus 
for a while. 

The Mystery listened apathetically. 

“ Well, it doesn’t matter much what I do. 
Perhaps I may as well come. Only is there 
a room that I can have off by itself some- 
where ? I couldn’t stand being tumbled in 
with a stranger, or having my door open right 
against hers.” 

“ Then,” said Betty eagerly, “ you shall { 
have the tower room. It’s so much by itself 
that I told Mr. Watson — he’s the architect in 
charge — that I was afraid no girl would dare 


ON THE CAMPUS 


l S7 


to sleep alone there. It’s like an island sur- 
rounded by linen closets, and then being in a 
tower it juts out quite away from everything 
else. And it’s the very prettiest room in the 
house,” she added enthusiastically. 

Miss Bond didn’t know that she cared much 
how it looked. 

“ I’ll let you know in a day or two how I 
decide,” she said. “ I should have to see — 
there are some things to consider. Do you 
know if the junior novel course has a written 
lesson to-morrow ? ” 

Betty didn’t know, and neither did Georgia, 
whom she applied to for the information ; but 
she promised to find out and let the Mystery 
know by telephone. Miss Bond thanked her 
with the first touch of real feeling she had 
shown that afternoon. 


CHAPTER IX 


MOVING IN 

Betty Wales, her sleeves rolled up to her 
elbows and her trim little figure enveloped in 
one of her famous kitchen aprons, stood on 
a chair in the china closet of Morton Hall, 
covering the top shelves neatly with sheets of 
white paper. One of the three richest men in 
New York, very damp and red in the face 
from his exertions, was screwing in hooks for 
pots and pans in the pantry next door. A 
rising young architect was helping the pretty 
wife of a distinguished psychology professor 
wash dishes, ready to put on Betty’s carefully 
spread papers. A would-be literary light was 
hanging pictures on the softly-tinted walls of 
the house parlor. Up-stairs Georgia, Babbie, 
and Eugenia Ford were superintending the 
efforts of the night-watchman and a janitor to 
arrange a bed, a bureau, a wash-stand, a desk, 
and two chairs to the best advantage in rooms 
guaranteed by the rising young architect 
158 


ON THE CAMPUS 


*59 


aforesaid to be perfectly capable of holding 
those articles, — or, in the case of double rooms, 
twice the number. 

Betty Wales wasn’t very tall, and the 
shelves were high and very, very long. Her 
arms ached from stretching ; her back was 
tired from spreading innumerable rugs ; her 
brain reeled with dozens of petty but impor- 
tant details. But she worked on doggedly, 
pushing back her curls wearily when they got 
in her eyes, ordering, coaxing, or bullying her 
distinguished assistants, her mind intent on 
one thing : Morton Hall must be ready for 
the girls when they came to-morrow. 

It was all because the matron had sprained 
her wrist — this hurry and scurry and confu- 
sion at the last minute. She had hoped every 
day to be able to come on and take charge of 
the settling, and from day to day they had 
waited, until finally Prexy, realizing that 
they had waited much too long, had asked 
Betty to take charge in her place. The ma- 
tron was coming that afternoon at five, with 
her arm still in a sling. Betty had promised 
to meet her. Jim Watson was keeping track 
of the time, and Mr. Morton’s car would be 


160 BETTY WALES 

ready to take her to the station. At distract- 
ingly frequent intervals the door-bell rang, 
and Mary Brooks Hinsdale had to stop wip- 
ing dishes to answer it. In the end Betty al- 
ways had to go, but Mary saved her time and 
anxiety about appearances by finding out who 
each visitor was. 

“ Never mind the smut on your left cheek,” 
she would say. “ It's only another person 
come to apply for a job as waitress, and she’s 
much too untidy herself to notice a small 
smut.” 

Or, “ This time you must take off your 
apron, Betty. It’s Prexy — he says he’ll only 
keep you a minute, but it’s important.” 

Or, “ A strange looking freak of a girl, 
Betty. If she hadn’t acted so completely 
scared, I’d have said you couldn’t be bothered. 
She looked as if she might jump into the next 
county if I suggested taking you her mes- 
sage.” 

And each time Betty smilingly hopped off 
her chair, greeted her visitor as cordially as if 
she was not feeling — to quote Mary Brooks — 
exactly like a cross between a reckless rith- 
erum and a distracted centipede, and got back 



( ( 


) J 


YOU MUST TAKE OFF YOUR APRON 





ON THE CAMPUS 161 

to her shelves as soon as she could possibly 
manage it, stopping on the way to encourage 
Mr. Morton, hurry Madeline, and warn Jim 
to wipe the dishes dry. 

“ Everything must be spick and span,” she 
insisted, “ to start us off right.” 

At last Jim called “ Four-forty-five, Betty,” 
and she jumped down again and ran to her 
room — the only place in the house that hadn’t 
been settled a bit — to dress. But she was so 
tired that she ended by unceremoniously bor- 
rowing Eleanor’s fur coat to put on over her 
mussy linen dress, and ordered Jonas to take 
her for a restful little spin up Elm Street. 
And so she managed to be all smiles and 
sparkles and pretty speeches of welcome for 
the matron, who was a nice motherly lady 
with the loveliest snow-white hair, and a 
sense of humor that twinkled out of her blue 
eyes and discovered everything comical about 
Betty — even to the mussy linen under the 
borrowed elegance — before Jonas had seen to 
the baggage and rushed his passengers up to 
Morton Hall. 

As Betty opened the door shrieks of mirth 
floated out to them from the matron’s rooms. 


162 


BETTY WALES 


“ Excuse me one minute, Mrs. Post,” she 
said hastily, “ while I see if everything is 
ready for you.” 

The whole company of “ Settlers,” as Made- 
line called them, not excepting the under- 
janitor and the night-watchman, were gath- 
ered in Mrs. Post’s cozy sitting-room. 

“ Where is she?” demanded Jim eagerly, 
when Betty appeared. 

“ Didn’t she come after all ? ” asked Geor- 
gia disappointedly. 

“ We’ve got ready the loveliest chorus of 
welcome,” explained Madeline, with a com- 
placent wave of the hand at her fellow 
workers. “ A Settlers’ Chorus, with solos by 
some of the most distinguished Settlers. Now, 
Betty, don’t look so horrified. Any sensible 
matron will be tremendously flattered by such 
a unique attention.” 

“ It’s perfectly respectable, Betty,” Mary 
Brooks Hinsdale assured her, 11 and Mr. Mor- 
ton and Mr. Watson and the night-watchman 
will never have another chance to be in a 
Harding show.” 

“What’s that?” demanded Mr. Morton, 
who had been so engrossed in studying his 


ON THE CAMPUS 163 

part that he had not noticed Betty’s arrival. 
“ I’ve heard a great deal about Harding 
shows, but I certainly never expected to be in 
a troupe. Bring on your audience, Miss B. A., 
or I shall forget my lines.” 

There was no use arguing. “ All right,” 
agreed Betty, “ only please remember that 
she’s a stranger to Harding ways, and don’t 
do anything to shock her too much. While 
the entertainment is going on, I’ll make us 
all some tea.” 

But nobody would listen to that proposi- 
tion for a minute. Betty, being herself chief 
Settler, must hear the Settlers’ Chorus. It 
ended by Mr. Morton’s summoning Jonas to 
make the tea — each Settler having unselfishly 
insisted upon being the one to do it. But 
Jonas was so entranced by the sight of his 
master singing a doggerel stanza in praise of 
the Admirable Architect, to a tune that he 
fondly supposed to be “ A Hot Time,” that he 
let the water boil over to begin with, and 
then steeped the tea until it was bitter and 
had to be thrown away. 

After Mr. Morton’s performance had been 
duly applauded, the night-watchman sang to 


164 BETTY WALES 

the Beneficent Benefactor, and Madeline sang 
to the Courageous Captain, meaning Mrs. 
Post herself. The Daring Defender was of 
course the night-watchman, glorified by 
Babbie as worthy of a gift of “ salad and ice 
and all things nice ” — in memory of the sup- 
per the three B's had spilled on his head 
when they were freshmen. Madeline was the 
Esthetic Elevator because she hung pictures 
and planned entertainments in a way to 
elevate the taste of the inmates, and Betty 
was the Flossy Furbelow, who sat and watched 
other people work. The alphabet ended with 
F, the chorus explained, 

“ For Settlers must work 
While others may rhyme. 

We’d have gone farther 
If there had been time.” 

But they had gone far enough to put Mrs. 
Post at her ease with everybody. While fresh 
tea was being made by the contrite Jonas, the 
Settlers escorted her triumphantly over her 
domain, and she praised everything and 
thanked everybody and seemed to fit so 
beautifully into the niche she had come to fill 
that Betty fairly danced with relief and ex- 


ON THE CAMPUS 165 

citement. If only the girls caught the right 
spirit as easily ! 

But of course some of them didn’t. There 
was the Thorn, who roomed on the ground 
floor next to Betty, and who ran in twenty 
times during the first week to make an ab- 
surd complaint or ask an impossible favor. 
There was the Mystery up in her tower ; she 
locked herself in so ostentatiously that she 
offended her next door neighbor, who 
promptly announced her intention of leaving 
such a “ cliquey ” house. There was the Goop, 
whose table manners were only equaled by 
the fine disorder of her apartment. She had 
been assigned to a double room, but she had 
to be tactfully transferred to a single, on the 
tearful complaint of her roommate ; and more 
tactfully urged to pick up her possessions, and 
not to eat with her knife. Then there were 
the Twin Digs, to whom the ten o’clock rule 
was as if it had never been, and the Romantic 
Miss, who professed bland and giggling inno- 
cence in regard to campus rules about gentle- 
men callers. Jim named them all, except the 
Mystery, in the last confidential chat that he 
and Betty had together, and he made her 


1 66 


BETTY WALES 


promise solemnly to keep him informed of 
their escapades. 

“ For I feel like a sort of Dutch uncle to all 
the Morton Hall-ites, ,, he explained. “ May 
I run up once in a while to see how you are 
getting on ? ” 

“ May you ? Will you ? ” was Betty’s en- 
thusiastic response. 

“ There might be some little changes,” went 
on Jim boldly. “ The only real test of a 
house is to live in it a while. If there is any- 
thing that doesn’t suit, you’ll let me know ? ” 

Betty promised to do that also, and Jim de- 
parted, divided between encouragement at 
Betty’s cordial invitation and her promise to 
write, and a conviction that before he had 
shut the door she had forgotten his very ex- 
istence in rapt absorption in her official plans 
and perplexities. 

The housewarming was a “ Madelineish ” 
success — that was foreordained — in spite of 
the Mystery’s refusal to attend it, the Thorn’s 
loud declaration that it was an absurd idea, 
and the Goop’s first using part of her costume 
for a dusting cloth and then losing it all in 
the unfathomable depths under her bed. Of 


ON THE CAMPUS 167 

course it was absurd — deliciously absurd — the 
Thanksgiving of the Purple Indians. The 
Purple Indians lived in blue tents in the 
depths of a pink forest. Their clothes were 
travesties of the latest shades and modes. 
They were thankful for the beautiful color- 
scheme of their world, for the seclusion and 
leisure of their lives. Presently they were 
discovered by a band of New Women, who 
converted them to suffrage, dress-reform, and 
the pursuit of culture, and marched them off 
to a Female College where they could live to 
learn — not to eat and to dress. There were 
sly local hits at the doll fad, the faculty's 
latest diversions, the department societies, the 
frivolities of Harding life in general. 

With a few exceptions the Morton Hall 
girls entered into the affair with spirit, mak- 
ing friends over the rehearsals and committee 
meetings, displaying much executive ability, 
and encouraging Betty to feel that in spite of 
some small disappointments in the character 
of a few of those who had been chosen, most 
of the Morton Hall-ites were fine girls, well 
worthy the help they were receiving in such 
generous measure. 


1 6 8 


BETTY WALES 


The Mystery fully justified her title. She 
was a bundle of contradictions. In spite of 
her curious craving for isolation, she seemed 
hungry for friendship and sympathy. She 
was painfully anxious for a part in the play 
and surprised Madeline by suggesting a clever 
little scene to be added to it ; but all of a sud- 
den she declared the scene would be too silly, 
refused to write it out, and was with diffi- 
culty persuaded to keep her part in the per- 
formance. 

She seemed to have made no friends in her 
three years of college life, and she assured 
Betty forlornly that there was no one she 
cared to ask to the play. But when Betty 
told Binks Ames, and Binks humbly begged 
for an invitation, the Mystery acted fright- 
ened and embarrassed, and disappeared the 
minute the play was over, leaving Binks 
to spend the rest of the evening as best she 
might. 

“ I think she's your kind," Betty told 
Mrs. Post. “ I’ll poke up the Goop and con- 
sole the Thorn, if you’ll try to clear up the 
Mystery — and cheer her up too." 

So Esther Bond found herself repeatedly 


ON THE CAMPUS 169 

invited into Mrs. Post’s cheerful little sitting- 
room for tea and a good talk in the dusk of 
the afternoon. Often just before ten Mrs. 
Post would tap on the tower-room door, and 
step in for a cheerful inquiry about “ lessons ” 
and a friendly good-night. At first the 
Mystery resented these intrusions as spying on 
her jealously guarded seclusion. She accepted 
Mrs. Post’s invitations sulkily because she 
could not well refuse, and sat, glum and si- 
lent, in the chair farthest from her hostess, as 
though intent on preventing all intruders 
from scaling her wall of reserve. 

But gradually she melted. Mrs. Post was 
so friendly, so impervious to sulks and melan- 
choly. It was so evident that her interest 
had nothing to do with curiosity — that she 
knew and cared nothing about the Mystery’s 
place in the college world. Best of all, she 
never referred to the Mystery’s habit of lock- 
ing her door ; she might never have noticed 
it from her unconscious manner. 

One night the Mystery sat down quite close 
to Mrs. Post, and the feeling of intimacy that 
comes from sitting close together in the fire- 
light unsealed her lips. She told Mrs. Post 


170 


BETTY WALES 


about her lonely childhood spent on her 
grandfather’s farm. 

“ He was awfully poor,” she explained. 
“ The farm was mortgaged, and everything 
was old and forlorn and coming to pieces. 
Once the Humane Society officers arrested 
him for driving a lame horse to town. I 
was with him. I remember how ashamed I 
was. I begged him to let me go back and 
live with my mother. Then at last he told 
me that mother was dead, and that my father 
had treated her cruelly and had refused to 
take care of her 4 brats.’ I shall never forget 
the sting of that word. It drowned out the 
shame of being arrested for cruelty to animals. 
Well, the next year the mortgage was fore- 
closed and the farm sold. The shame of that 
killed my grandfather. My grandmother 
went to the poorhouse, and I went to work 
for a family in the village, where I could 
earn my board and have a chance to go to 
school. I used to think I’d like to teach.” 

“ Well, you can in a year more,” Mrs. Post 
told her cheerfully. “ It’s a noble calling.” 

“ I shall hate it all the same,” declared the 
Mystery fiercely. 


ON THE CAMPUS 171 

“ Oh, no, you won’t, child,” Mrs. Post told 
her, patting her shoulder gently. “ You 
mustn’t quarrel with your bread and butter. 
Who sends you to Harding? ” 

“ A woman I worked for once at home pays 
part of my expenses. I shall return it all as 
soon as I can. That’s all I shall have to 
work for now,” she added bitterly, “ except 
bread and butter. My grandmother died 
when I was a freshman.” 

“ Just let me read you the last letter I had 
from my daughter, who is a nurse,” Mrs. Post 
would say at this stage of the Mystery’s con- 
fidences. “ Or no,” after a minute’s vain 
search for her reading glasses, “ you read it 
to me, dear.” 

The daughter who was a nurse was a cheer- 
ful, placid creature, with a simple, optimistic 
belief in the joy of life and the nobility of 
her profession. The Mystery enjoyed the 
letters in spite of herself, and was divided 
between contempt and envy of the writer. 

One night the Mystery crept shamefacedly 
down from her lonely tower just to kiss Mrs. 
Post good-night. She found that good lady 
in a state of joyous excitement over the 


172 BETTT WALES 

engagement of the daughter who was a sten- 
ographer. 

“ She is the oldest of the family,” she ex- 
plained. “She’s helped me, and helped keep 
the other girls in school, and given Bella 
nearly all the money she needed for her 
nurse’s course. She’s worked hard, and she 
has never complained. Now I hope she can 
have a nice easy time.” 

“ So do I,” said the Mystery heartily. “ And, 
Mrs. Post, I’m going to try not to complain 
and not to hate so many people and things. 
Maybe I can find a bright side to life if I try. 
I guess you think I’m a grumbler, but I’ve 
had a lot to make me one.” 

“ I know you have, dear,” Mrs. Post told 
her soothingly. 

But the Mystery shook her head. “ No, 
you don’t know, dear lady. Nobody knows. 
I’ve never told you the real big trouble — I 
couldn’t. Good-night.” 

To Betty the Mystery continued cold and 
forbidding, and Betty wisely decided to leave 
her to Mrs. Post. 

“ There are people I don’t especially like,” 
she reflected, “ and of course there are people 


ON THE CAMPUS 173 

who don’t like me. The Mystery is evidently 
one of them. I must write Jim and tell him 
what a hit his tower room makes with her, 
even if I can’t get near her.” 


CHAPTER X 


GHOSTS AND INSPIRATIONS 

One snowy afternoon in December Dorothy, 
looking like a snowbird in her gray coat 
powdered with big white flakes, flitted into 
Betty’s room and without giving her sister a 
chance to say “ How do you do ? ” burst out 
with her great news. 

“ There’s such an excitement at school. 
Miss Dick just laughs, but Kitty Carson 
thinks it was burglars, and we girls all think 
it was a ghost.” 

“ Goodness, what a beautiful excitement ! ” 
laughed Betty. “ Tell me all about it.” 

“ Well, you see Shirley Ware heard it first,” 
explained Dorothy, “ and she was so scared 
that she tried to scream. And all that came 
out was a kind of a choke. It woke me up 
and then I heard it too — the other noise, I 
mean. It was a queer little scratching and 
knocking on the wall.” 

“ Mice, you silly child,” put in Betty wisely. 

174 


ON THE CAMPUS 


*7S 


But Dorothy scorned such a theory. “ I 
guess I know how mice sound, after all I 
heard this summer, scurrying and hurrying 
inside our cottage walls. Besides, mice don’t 
groan, Betty Wales. The next thing we 
heard was a groan — an awfully sad sound, 
you know, Betty. It scared me so that I tried 
to scream too, and the other two girls woke 
up. They said I only made a little squeak,” 
explained the Smallest Sister proudly, “and 
of course if I had really screamed Kitty 
Carson would have heard, for all she sleeps 
so sound.” 

“ And what did the ghost do then ? ” asked 
Betty. 

“ It just groaned once more louder than 
ever, and then it stopped, and everything was 
just awfully still. So I got into bed with 
Sarah and Helen, and I s’pose I went to sleep. 
But Shirley was so scared that she couldn’t 
move, and she stayed awake and saw it.” 

“ You mean she was so scared that she im- 
agined that she saw it, dearie,” Betty amended. 
“There aren’t any ghosts, you know, really 
and truly, Dottie.” 

“ Well, there are burglars,” Dorothy in- 


BETTY WALES 


176 

sisted, “ and anyway, it wasn't a mouse. 
And what Shirley saw was a tall white ghost 
with its hands over its face — so.” Dorothy 
illustrated graphically. “ And in the morn- 
ing we told Miss Dick, and she laughed, but 
Kitty Carson's window has a fire-escape, and 
she sleeps so sound that anybody could go in 
and out that way. We know she is just as 
scared as we are because there's a man come 
this very afternoon to put bars on her 
window.” 

“ Well, then you'll be quite safe to-night,” 
Betty assured her comfortably. “ Didn’t I 
ever tell you about our Scotch ghosts ? ” 

“ Yes, but please do it again,” begged 
Dorothy, “ because I’ve most forgotten, and 
then I can tell the girls. We’re so interested 
in ghosts just now.” 

So Betty told about the ghost that Madeline 
and Mr. Dwight had invented to add the 
finishing touch to Babbie’s ancestral castle at 
Oban. “ Ghosts that little girls see are always 
like that,” she ended, “just jokes that some- 
body has played for fun. If Shirley really saw 
anything it was some big girl who’d dressed 
up on purpose to frighten you little ones.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


1 77 


“ It couldn’t be.” The Smallest Sister’s 
tone was very positive. “ There’s a chimney 
next to our wall on Shirley’s side where the 
noises were. No girl could crawl up a 
chimney. Nothing could get there but a 
ghost.” 

“ Or a mouse,” interpolated Betty sceptic- 
ally. 

“ Mice don’t groan,” Dorothy reminded her. 
“ If it was a girl — but it couldn’t be, because 
how could a girl get in the chimney ? — and 
Miss Dick ever finds out who it was, why, I 
shouldn’t care to be in her shoes, I just guess ! 
Shirley got so scared it made her sick. She’s 
gone to the infirmary to-day.” 

“ When she comes back you’d better put 
your cot near to hers, so she can reach out 
and wake you if she’s ever frightened again,” 
Betty advised. “ It was selfish of you three 
to get into one bed and leave her alone.” 

“ She could have come if she’d wanted to,” 
the Smallest Sister defended herself. “ We 
s’posed she wasn’t a bit afraid when she stayed 
where she was, instead of her being too afraid 
to move.” 

“ Well, next time be more thoughtful,” 


BETTY WALES 


178 

Betty cautioned, and the Smallest Sister 
promised, and prepared to hop-skip back to 
school. 

“ Frisky and I walk together this week ” — 
she explained her brief visit — “ so I don’t 
want to miss a single walk. I can go walk- 
ing with you next week. Yes, I do hate two- 
and-two school walks ’most as much as ever 
I did, but it’s different when I can walk with 
Frisky. I’ll come again soon and tell you 
what we’ve discovered about the ghost,” she 
called over her shoulder, as she vanished. 

That evening the Thorn appeared in Betty’s 
room, wearing her most provoking air — a 
combination of sympathy for Betty, offended 
dignity for herself, and a grim pleasure in 
showing up the shortcomings and inferiori- 
ties of her house mates. 

“ How did Mr. J. J. Morton make all his 
money? ” she inquired, after a few moments’ 
acrid criticism of the Purple Indian play, 
which had just been successfully repeated, by 
request, for the benefit of the Student’s Aid 
treasury. 

“ Why, I don’t know exactly,” Betty an- 
swered idly. “ Railroads, I think, and — and 


ON THE CAMPUS 


1 79 

stocks and bonds. The same way other rich 
men have made their money, I suppose.” 

“ I guess it's tainted millions, all right.” 
The Thorn’s thin lips shut tight, and her 
sharp eyes fixed Betty’s belligerently. 

Betty only smiled at her good-humoredly. 
“ Did you read Peggy Swift’s article in the 
last * Argus ’ on that subject ? She makes you 
see how all money is tainted, in a way. But 
Mr. Morton is as fair and upright as he can 
be. He is splendid to the men who work for 
him, Mr. Thayer says. And he spends most 
of his time nowadays in superintending his 
charities.” 

“ When he isn’t spending it squeezing some 
small competitor to the wall, or whitewash- 
ing a corner,” added the Thorn sententiously. 

Betty considered this speech in bewildered 
silence. Her ideas of political economy were 
very hazy. Was it always wrong to get rid 
of competition, if you were smart enough to 
do it ? she wondered. What in the world did 
a “ corner ” have to do with tainted money, 
and why should Mr. Morton be blamed for 
any interest he might have in a thing as in- 
nocent and necessary as whitewash ? 


180 BETTY WALES 

“ I didn't think you’d have anything to 
say to that,” the Thorn proceeded trium- 
phantly, after a minute. “ Besides, I’ve got 
proof of every word I say. We aren’t going 
to be happy in this house. It’s haunted — by 
the spirits of those he has wronged, I sup- 
pose.” 

“ Matilda Thorn — I mean Jones,” began 
Betty, letting Jim’s name pop out before she 
thought, in her annoyance, “ don’t be so 
ridiculous. I can’t argue about Mr. Morton’s 
business methods because I don’t know 
enough about them, and neither do you. But 
President Wallace does, and he accepted this 
house very gladly for Harding College. Fur- 
thermore, you accepted a place in it very 
gladly — yours was the first name on my list. 
So I think it is very inconsistent of you, as 
well as very ungracious, to criticize Mr. Mor- 
ton now. But when you talk about this 
house being haunted you are simply making 
yourself ridiculous. Please explain what you 
mean by saying such a thing.” 

The Thorn listened to Betty’s stern ar- 
raignment with growing amazement. She 
had “ sized up ” the new secretary as “ one of 


ON THE CAMPUS 181 


the pretty, easy-going kind,” and had vastly 
enjoyed worrying her with ill-grounded com- 
plaints, which had always been treated with a 
sweet seriousness that the Thorn had found 
very diverting. Now she realized that she 
had gone too far, and she rose to retreat, 
rallying her scattered forces into a semblance 
of order. 

“ I'm sorry I've offended you, Miss 
Wales,” she said humbly. “ I didn’t re- 
member that Mr. Morton was a friend of 
yours. I haven’t any friends of his sort — he 
seems to belong in another world from mine. 
I didn’t mean to be rude — or ungrateful — or 
ridiculous.” 

Betty held out her hand impulsively. 
Being perfectly sincere and simple herself, 
she could never have guessed at the strange 
complexity of motives that actuated the 
Thorn. “ Then if you didn’t mean it, it’s all 
right,” she said. “ So please sit down and 
tell me what you think Mr. Morton has done 
that isn’t honest, and I’ll ask him about it — 
or I’ll ask President Wallace to explain it to 
us. And then tell me what makes you say 
that Morton Hall is haunted.” Betty’s sense 


BETTT WALES 


182 

of humor nearly overcame her dignity at this 
point, and the last word ended in a chuckle 
that she hastily converted into a cough. 
Ghosts seemed to be dogging her path to-day. 

The Thorn sat down again majestically. 
“ Well,” she began uncertainly, “ I’m not 
sure that I know anything in particular 
about Mr. Morton’s methods. All great for- 
tunes are founded on trickery, in my opinion. 
A great many other people seem to think so 
too, according to all that you read. And 
when the girls on the top floor began to hear 
ghosts walking and talking and unlocking 
locked doors, why, I suppose I put two and 
two together — that’s all. Some way you al- 
ways associate ghosts with wicked men. Of 
course it might be Miss Bond who was 
haunted, instead of Mr. Morton’s money.” 

“ But Miss Jones,” broke in Betty in 
amazement, “ you don’t really believe in 
ghosts, do you? My little sister has just 
been here with a story of how some of Miss 
Dick’s girls were frightened last night by 
mysterious noises. It’s bad enough for chil- 
dren as big as she is to think they’ve seen 
ghosts, but for Harding girls ” 


ON THE CAMPUS 183 

The Thorn shrugged her shoulders dubi- 
ously. “ That’s what I said myself when I 
first heard about it, but yesterday in evening 
study-hour I was up there, and we certainly 
heard the queerest whisperings and mutter- 
ings coming from the tower room. We were 
sure Miss Bond was in there alone, so we 
knocked to see if she was sick or wanted any- 
thing. She didn’t answer, and we finally 
tried the door and it was locked, as usual. 
So we banged and banged, and we were just 
going to call Mrs. Post when Miss Bond 
finally came — and she was all alone and 
hadn’t been studying elocution or reading her 
Lit. out loud. She said she hadn’t heard any- 
thing either, except the racket we made, but 
I noticed she didn’t act much as if she meant 
it. She’s so secretive she’d keep even a ghost 
to herself, probably,” ended the Thorn vin- 
dictively. 

Betty advanced the mice-in-the-walls 
theory, only to have it scoffed aside, with a 
variation of the Smallest Sister’s argument : 
“ Mice do not whisper and mutter ; they 
scramble and squeak.” She suggested that 
the sounds came from another study ; that 


BETTY WALES 


184 

had been carefully investigated. She hastily 
dismissed the suspicion that the Mystery had 
misled them about being alone. In the first 
place she felt sure that the Mystery was 
honest ; in the second place the Thorn, as if 
reading her thoughts, explained how they 
had hunted through the closet and even 
looked under the bed. 

“ Well, you will have to keep your ghosts, 
then,” Betty laughed finally. “ Only don’t 
throw the blame on poor Mr. Morton or on 
Miss Bond, who didn’t hear anything. Why, 
maybe it’s you they’re haunting. The people 
who hear things are the ones to worry about 
being responsible, I should say.” 

The Thorn refused to turn the matter into a 
pleasantry. “ They’ve all heard the noises,” 
she explained, “ the girls who room on the 
third floor. They asked me to come up last 
night and see what I thought.” 

“ And then speak to me ? ” asked Betty, 
annoyed that the Thorn should have been 
honored with an official mission. 

“ Well — if I thought best,” the Thorn ad- 
mitted. 

“ All right,” said Betty cheerfully. 41 You 


ON THE CAMPUS 185 

can tell them what I’ve said — particularly 
what I think about the silliness of believing 
in ghosts. If they are troubled by any more 
noises, they can let me or Mrs. Post know, 
and we’ll look into it.” 

“ People do get the queerest ideas into their 
heads,” she sighed, when the Thorn had de- 
parted. “ To-day it’s ghosts, ghosts every- 
where, and to-morrow it will be something 
else.” 

To-morrow’s trouble, as it proved when 
to-morrow came, was inspirations. Babbie 
had one — quite unrelated of course to the fact 
that she and Mr. Thayer could not agree 
about the prettiest furnishings for a library — 
to the effect that her mother was lonely and 
needed the society of her only child. And 
Madeline had one, which took the form of a 
plot for a drama that was certain to make 
Broadway “ sit up and take notice.” 

“ But, Madeline,” Betty begged, “ you can 
write that later. It’s getting very close to 
Christmas. You’ve got to take charge of the 
Tally-ho’s gift-shop department again. The 
Morton Hall girls will help, but they’re no 
good at planning. And neither am I.” 


1 86 


BETTY W A LES 


“ Make the things we planned last year,” 
suggested Madeline promptly. 

“ You know that won't do, Madeline,” 
Betty told her sternly. “ All our best cus- 
tomers have bought dozens of extra-special 
candle-shades and Cupid cards and stenciled 
blotters. We can have some of those, for 
freshmen or girls who didn’t get around to 
buy last year. But it will all seem stale and 
left over and silly if we don’t have some 
grand new specialties. Please, Madeline I ” 
Madeline frowned darkly and shook her 
head. “ Ever since that tea-shop was started, 
I have sacrificed my Literary Career to its 
needs. Now I revolt. I’m going to write 
my play while I’m in the mood. If I should 
finish before Christmas, why, then I’ll help 
with the gift-shop business, not otherwise.” 

“ What shall I do ? ” sighed Betty. “ The 
gift shop pays splendidly. We can’t let it go, 
because if we do we shall make less money 
than we did last year, and then Mrs. Hildreth 
and Mrs. Bob would be disappointed. Be- 
sides, I’ve been promising some of my girls a 
regular harvest from it.” 

“ Mary Brooks invented a pretty candle- 


ON THE CAMPUS 187 

shade last year,” Madeline reminded her. 
“ Tell her that she’s the Perfect Patron, and 
must dress the part. Command her to come 
to the rescue of the gift shop.” 

“ I shall ask her to come and talk to you,” 
Betty murmured under her breath. 

But even Mary’s lively arguments left 
Madeline unmoved. 

“ If it was an order that you’d had for a 
play,” Mary told her calmly, “ I wouldn’t 
say a word. But you’re only wasting your 
time on a forlorn hope, just when you might 
be doing something really useful. I shall 
cross my thumbs at you and your old play.” 

“ You may cross your thumbs all you want 
to,” Madeline defied her smilingly. “ Before 
the winter is over you’ll be sitting in a box at 
my Broadway opening — that is, if I’m mag- 
nanimous enough to ask you, after all the 
beautiful encouragement you’re giving me.” 

“ But, Madeline” — Mary was nothing if not 
persistent — “ what makes you think you can 
write a play, when all your stories have come 
back, except a few of those college ones ? A 
play is any amount harder to write than a 
short story.” 


1 88 


BETTY JV ALES 


Madeline smiled back at her confidently. 
“ Maybe I agree with you, little Mary. But 
in the first place every Tom, Dick and Harry 
is writing good short stories nowadays, and 
nobody is writing extra good plays. In the 
second place, I have discovered the secret of 
writing natural but amusing dialogue.” 

“ And I suppose you know all there is to be 
known about stage-craft,” added Mary, in her 
most sarcastic tones. 

“ I’ve seen every good thing in New York 
ever since I could talk,” Madeline announced 
calmly. “ Besides, I am going down to New 
York later to look up the stage business. But 
first I’m going to get the play all written. 
I’m afraid the original touch would tumble 
out if I carried it to New York in my head. 
And then,” she added mysteriously, “ I 
couldn’t use my secret method about dialogue 
so well in New York.” 

“ Madeline Ayres,” Mary told her solemnly, 
“ you are the most provoking person I know. 
You have mooned around here all the fall, 
doing footless little stunts for anybody that 
asked you. Now, when Betty and the Tally- 
ho need you, you are under the spell of the 


ON THE CAMPUS 189 

most untimely inspiration that I’ve ever heard 
of your having.” 

“ I guess the Vagabonds would like to hear 
you call the Pageant I wrote for them foot- 
less,” declared Madeline in injured tones, 
“ and if any college play ever took better than 
the Purple Indians ” 

“ Of course your stunts are all perfectly 
lovely,” Mary hastened to assure her. 
“ You’re the most provoking but also pretty 
nearly the most interesting of all the B. C. A.’s. 
Isn’t she, Betty? I’ll cross my thumbs for 
your play instead of against it, Madeline.” 

“ Thanks,” said Madeline briefly. “ I’m 
writing it for Agatha Dwight.” 

Betty and Mary exchanged glances of utter 
amazement. Agatha Dwight was the idol of 
Harding and of two continents besides. The 
leading playwrights of England and America 
wrote for her, and the greatest of them felt 
highly honored when her capricious taste 
singled out a piece of his for production. 

“ And the moral of that is,” said Mary at 
last, “ aim at a star, because it’s no disgrace if 
you miss her. Pun not noticed until it was 
too late to withdraw the epigram. Come on, 


190 


BETTY WALES 


Betty, and fix up the workroom. It's lucky 
that George Garrison Hinsdale is writing 
another of his horribly learned papers this 
month, so I can be down here as much as I 
like. This one is on the aberrations of Genius. 
I shall suggest untimely inspirations as an im- 
portant subhead, and invite Madeline up to 
discuss it with him. Meanwhile our only 
hope is that she’ll get sick of her play and 
come to our rescue, and do you know, Betty 
Wales, I shall be most desperately disap- 
pointed if she does.” 

Betty laughed. “ I suppose she oughtn’t to 
waste her time on fussy little things like 
gift-shop specialties if she can really do big 
things like plays for Agatha Dwight. But 
she is so splendid at everything.” 

“ And the moral of that is,” said Mary, “ be 
splendid at everything and you’ll be wanted, 
no matter how provoking you are at times. 
I should like to have been a genius myself, 
only George Garrison Hinsdale says he prefers 
near-geniuses as wives. Now, Betty Wales, 
what do you say to a ploshkin candle-shade 
for this year’s extra-special feature ? ” 


CHAPTER XI 


WHAT CHRISTMAS REALLY MEANS 

The Terrible Ten began it. Eleanor Wat- 
son had forgotten to bring either peanuts or 
taffy to their class, and the Arithmetic lesson 
flagged in consequence, until finally, in de- 
spair, she sent Rafael out to buy some re- 
freshments. 

“ How’s your father to-night, Pietro?” 
she asked, while they waited. Pietro Senior 
had slipped on the ice on his way home from 
work and sprained his wrist badly. 

“ Better, I tink,” Pietro reported stolidly, 
his thoughts all on peanuts to come. 

“ Dat’s nottings — lit’ wrist splain,” Giu- 
seppi announced. “ My fader, he had a hand 
cut off — so.” 

“My fader go to de hospital. Hava big 
cutting.” Nicolo illustrated a “ big cutting ” 
vividly with a dangerous swing of his villain- 
ous-looking jack-knife. 

“ My moder she hava two operations dis 
year.” 


191 


192 


BETTY WALES 


“ My sister she have tree.” 

Rafael had arrived during the debate, but 
not even the bag of peanuts he set down be- 
fore Eleanor could distract attention from the 
bitter rivalry in misfortune. In a minute 
Rafael too had caught the trend of it. 

“ Waita lil minute,” he cried, glowering an- 
grily round the circle. “ Looka my hand. 
Dat’s one. My lil sister she died dis year. 
My muvver she go to hospital. And my big 
sister, she work to Cannon’s fer der Christ- 
mas trade. She say she rather die, she so 
tired every night, an’ it get worse an’ worse 
an’ worse every day till it be Christmas.” 

“ Dat so,” agreed Pietro solemnly. “ My 
sister she work dar too. Doan get home till 
ten, leben o’clock.” 

Cannon’s was the big cheap department 
store down near the station. Eleanor took 
mental note of the Ten’s opinion of its treat- 
ment of employees, and resolved to ask Mr. 
Thayer if the girls who worked there really 
had such a hard time as their small brothers 
thought. Meanwhile she stopped the ridic- 
ulous operation contest with many peanuts. 
The Ten, being very bright boys, though ig- 


ON THE CAMPUS 


193 


norant of books, had speedily discovered that 
the bigger numbers you could add right, the 
faster you could secure large quantities of 
peanuts. Also, they humbly worshipped the 
Lovely Lady, whom Rafael had refused to let 
them call “ de peach.” They came regularly 
to their class, they listened spellbound to 
the adventures of Robin Hood, they wrote 
the names of Robin and all his band — also 
their own and the Lovely Lady’s — without 
a slip, and when Eleanor declared that noth- 
ing would make her so happy as to hear 
them read the tale of King Arthur and his 
knights to her out of a book, they set them- 
selves at learning “ dose queer book letters ” 
with a will. 

“ First fellah dat bothers my Lovely Lada, 
I fixa him,” Rafael had announced at the end 
of the third lesson. 

“ Why she your lovely lada ? ” demanded 
Pietro mockingly, dodging behind a telegraph 
pole for safety. 

“ ’Cause I lika her de most,” Rafael de- 
clared, “ and she goan lika me de most. You 
jus’ wait.” 

But after that one assertion of proprietor- 


194 


BETTY WALES 


ship, he changed “ my ” to “ the,” and im- 
pressed the revision upon his friends and 
followers with terrible threats. Rafael’s eyes 
were brown and melting, his voice was of a 
liquid softness, his smile as sunny as the 
skies of his native land. But when he 
scowled all the fierceness of Sicilian feuds 
and vendettas flashed out of his deep eyes 
and straightened his mouth into a cruel, 
hard line. No wonder the Ten shivered and 
cowered before the wrath of Rafael, supple- 
mented by the flash of a sharp little dagger 
that Eleanor, who had been entirely reassured 
by Mr. Thayer, little suspected the dearest of 
her dear, curly-haired comical Ten to be car- 
rying inside his gray shirt. 

After the class that evening, Eleanor asked 
Mr. Thayer about Cannon’s. 

“ Well, I suppose they are pretty hard on 
their girls,” he said. “ Standing up all day 
waiting on tired, irritable customers who 
have to make every penny count, with fif- 
teen minutes off for lunch in the busy season, 
can’t be exactly fun. Then in the evening I 
suppose they have to go back to straighten up 
their stock of goods, move things around to 


ON THE CAMPUS 


195 


show them off better, trim up the windows, 
and so on. Christmas means something quite 
different from a gay holiday with a big din- 
ner and a lot of pretty presents to those girls 
and to lots of others, Miss Watson. If the 
Christmas rush is bad at Cannon’s, it must 
be perfect torture in the big city shops.” 

Next day Eleanor persuaded Madeline, who 
could always be detached from her work to 
investigate a real novelty, to go with her to 
Cannon’s. 

“ If we want to ask the clerks any ques- 
tions, you can do it safely in Italian, or any 
other language,” Eleanor urged. “ They’re 
mostly foreigners, I think.” 

Madeline nodded. “ And I might find the 

type ” Her voice trailed off into silence, 

and her face wore a far-away, inscrutable look. 
Writing a play for Miss Dwight certainly 
made a person very absent-minded, and one’s 
conversation very inconsecutive — also one’s 
actions. Madeline suddenly decided to buy a 
hat, and dragged Eleanor from one shop to 
another without finding anything to please 
her difficult taste, so that it was almost dark 
when they reached Cannon’s. 


BETTY WALES 


1 96 

The big store was packed with shoppers. 
The air was clammy and stale ; the counters 
were a mass of soiled and dingy merchandise. 
Tiny cash-girls ran wearily to and fro, elbow- 
ing a difficult way through the jam in the 
narrow aisles. Behind the counters pale- 
faced clerks eyed the customers savagely, and 
attended with languid insolence to their 
wants. 

Eleanor sniffed the air daintily. “ What 
an awful place, Madeline ! Where do all 
these shoppers come from ? I don’t feel a bit 
as if I were in Harding.” 

“ From Factory Hill, I suppose, and from 
across the tracks where the French settlement 
is. Let’s go to the toy department and buy 
Fluffy a doll. I’m sure they’ll have something 
unique to add to her collection.” 

Eleanor stood near the door, hesitating. 
“It’s horribly smelly. You don’t think we 
shall catch anything, do you ? ” 

Madeline laughed. “ You’d never do to go 
really and truly slumming, Eleanor. No, we 
shan’t catch anything, probably. Come along. 
I thought you wanted to investigate this 
place.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 197 

So Eleanor bravely “ came along.” They 
bought a penny doll for Fluffy, from a sad- 
eyed little clerk who told them she was 
“ tired most to death working nights,” and 
then, when a floor-walker appeared suddenly 
from around a corner, took it all back and de- 
clared loudly that business was fine this year 
and she liked the rush of “ somethin’ doin’.” 

On the way down-stairs — Eleanor had 
firmly refused to get into one of Cannon’s 
elevators — they came upon a girl crying bit- 
terly. 

“ What’s the matter?” Madeline asked in 
the friendly, companionable way that always 
got her answers. 

“ I’ve been fined again,” the girl sobbed. 
“ Ten cents ain’t so much, but neither is four 
dollars. That’s what I get. I’ve been fined 
three times this week. What for ? Why, 
once for being late in the morning — it’s 
awful easy to sleep over when you’ve been 
working late at night — and once for sitting 
down on the ledge behind the counter. It’s 
against the rules to sit down, you know. 
And this time it was for talking back to an 
inspector who said my check was wrong. It 


198 BETTT JV ALES 

wasn’t. If it had been, I’d have been fined 
for that.” 

Eleanor had been hunting through her 
pocketbook. 

“ Please take this,” she said, “ and don’t 
cry any more. Can’t you get off to-night and 
have a good rest ? ” 

The girl shook her head vigorously, smiling 
at Eleanor through her tears. “ I’d lose my 
job like that, ma’am. I ain’t any worse off 
than the others ; only it did make me sick to 
lose the money when I got so many depend- 
ing on me — my old grandmother and two kid 
brothers — and I wanted to make a little 
Christmas for the kids. Thank you an awful 
lot, ma’am.” 

The girls went on their way fairly bursting 
with indignation. 

“ The idea of fining her for sitting down to 
rest ! ” sputtered Madeline. “ And for being 
late, when she’s worked half the night before, 
it’s outrageous ! ” 

Eleanor had quite forgotten the odors and 
the risk of infection. “ Let’s buy some rib- 
bon,” she suggested. “ That counter seems to 
be the hub of the shopping fray.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


199 


So they bought ribbon of a dark-eyed, dark- 
haired beauty who proved to be Pietro's sister. 
She beamed on Eleanor, and in the safe 
foreign tongue confided to Madeline that 
Cannon's was certainly a bad place to work. 
She could look out for herself, she explained, 
flashing an imperious glance at an inspector. 
She brought in lots of Italian trade, and could 
interpret both in Italian and French for the 
women who hadn't learned English. So they 
treated her better. Oh, they fined her, of 
course — that was the rule — and she worked 
most nights. But she was pretty sure of keep- 
ing her place, whatever happened. That was 
a big help. They should see the dirty hole 
of a lunch-room before they left, she called 
gleefully after them, under the very eye of 
the fat little man whom she had pointed out as 
Mr. Cannon. It was certainly “ a big help " to 
be able to utter wholesome truths like that 
with impunity. 

“ Let's go and reason with him," suggested 
Madeline, looking angrily after the fat little 
proprietor. “ Let's make him take us to see 
the dirty hole of a rest-room. Let’s threaten 
to boycott him if he doesn't reform his ways." 


200 


BETTT WALES 


Eleanor looked very much frightened. 
“ We should only get the girls we’ve talked 
to into trouble. The boycott wouldn’t work 
because we’ve never bought anything anyway 
until to-day. I — I think I’m beginning to 
feel faint, Madeline. Let’s go home and talk 
it over with Betty and Mr. Thayer. They’ll 
think of just the right thing to do.” 

But Mr. Thayer had gone to Boston, via 
Babbie Hildreth’s, and it was Eugenia Ford’s 
plan that, after much discussion, was settled 
upon, for the reason, as Madeline put it, that 
it was “just wild enough to work.” 

So after chapel the next morning Eugenia, 
Georgia, and Fluffy — Straight had tearfully 
decided not to cut Logic — chaperoned by 
Betty, appeared at Cannon’s and asked to see 
the head of the firm. 

“ Good-morning, Mr. Cannon,” said Georgia 
in businesslike tones, when he appeared. 
“ We’ve got a proposition to make to you. 
We three are Harding girls, and this is Miss 
Wales, secretary of the Student’s Aid Society, 
— also proprietor of the Tally-ho Tea-Shop.” 

“ Indeed ! Charmed to meet you, I’m 
sure.” The fat little man bowed low and 


ON THE CAMPUS 


201 


smiled a fatuous, oily smile. “ Anything I 
can do in the way of canned goods, crackers, 
sweets — to the sweet, ladies.” He bowed and 
smiled again. 

“ We want to ask a favor,” pursued Georgia, 
utterly ignoring his courtesies. “ We all 
have pretty good times generally, and very 
merry Christmases. We want other girls to 
have the same. We have just lately realized 
how hard it is for salespeople just at this time 
of year — how Christmas means to them just 
terribly hard work for little or no extra pay — 
and we want to help at least a few of them. 
So we’ve gotten up a petition about shopping 
early in the day, and early in the season, for 
the Harding girls to sign. Now we also want 
to arrange to come down and help some of 
your girls out. We want to take the places 
of three of them every day from twelve to 
one, so that they can get a good rest at noon, 
and also from five to six, so they can, if pos- 
sible, do any extra work they have then and 
so avoid night work. If not, they can at least 
start fresh for the evening.” 

Mr. Cannon stared at Georgia in utter 
amazement. Suddenly his fat face grew red, 


202 


BETTY WALES 


and he shouted angrily, “ Who's been talkin’ 
to you ? You know an awful lot about my 
business, don’t you, now ? You’d better clear 
out.” 

“ Without the canned goods and crackers 
and sweets — for the sweet?” asked Fluffy 
gaily, looking down at him with her fascinat- 
ing, insolent smile. 

“ We’ve talked to no one, Mr. Cannon,” put 
in little Eugenia earnestly. 

“ And we mean to help you too, as is only 
fair, if you are good enough to give us the 
chance to help the girls,” added Betty, with 
quiet dignity. 

Mr. Cannon glowered at the circle of pretty, 
serious, half-frightened faces. 

“ You don’t know nothing about clerking,” 
he sputtered at last. “ Nice mess you’d make 
of your hours ! Nice kind of help you’d hand 
out to me ! ” 

“ I was a waitress once,” Fluffy informed 
him calmly, winking at Betty. “ The young 
woman I worked for said I was very good at 
it. Besides, all my little friends came and 
patronized me. If you’ll let me try, I’ll ask 
them to patronize me here.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


203 


“ We don’t expect pay,” Georgia explained, 
“and the first day we come we’d just be 
extras, watching to see what our duties would 
be.” 

“ Don’t be silly, Mr. Cannon,” urged Fluffy, 
who was never in the least daunted by oppo- 
sition. “ We’ll accomplish more in an hour 
than these poor dragged-out girls ever do — 
even if we don’t understand the difficult art 
of clerking,” she added maliciously. “ And 
they’ll do more in their afternoons, after 
they’ve had a chance to rest. W.hat you want 
is your money’s worth, isn’t it? The best 

service for the smallest wages. Don’t ” 

“ See here,” Mr. Cannon cut her short, 
“ let’s have a little talk. What did you 
come here for to-day ? ” He pointed a pudgy 
finger at Fluffy, who explained once more, in 
picturesque phrases, the idea they had had in 
coming to interview him. 

“ You say you’ve been a waitress? ” 

Fluffy nodded, winking solemnly again at 
Betty. 

“ You’re not a labor organizer ? ” 

With equal solemnity she denied the charge. 
“ Far as I can see, you’re more or less luny. 


204 


BETTT WALES 


If you want to, you can try. Come to-day at 
twelve. If you get along, maybe the others 
can take hold. Some o’ my girls are fagged, 
for sure, and if your little friends, as you call 
them, come in, that’ll help some. I’ve always 
said,” added Mr. Cannon proudly, “ that if I 
could once get the college trade to swing my 
way, I could keep it. Honest values for cash 
is my motto.” And with a curt little nod he 
started off. 

“ Wait ! ” Fluffy arrested his progress. 
“ You mean I’m to come and not the 
others ? ” 

Mr. Cannon nodded. “ As the most likely 
specimen. I don’t believe in beginning any 
new experiment on too sumptoos a scale.” 
This time he was irrevocably gone. 

Fluffy wore a comical air of dismay. 
“ Gracious ! Doing it all alone isn’t at all my 
idea of a stunt. I shall be terribly scared and 
lonely. Straight’s got to spend the entire 
hour buying things of me. Oh, dear ! She 
can’t, because it’s a cash store and we haven’t 
any money left. I wonder, if I should tell 
him I had a twin, whether he wouldn’t let 
her try to-day too.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 205 

“ No time,” said Georgia firmly. “ Psych. 
6 beckons. But you shan’t be deserted. 
We’ll take up a contribution for Straight to 
spend.” 

Fluffy’s experiment in social service was 
the sensation of the Harding morning. 
Promptly at twelve she appeared, and was 
given the place of a wan little girl behind the 
ribbon counter. Ten minutes later — she had 
stipulated for that interval in which to learn 
how to “ work ” her cash-book — the “ college 
trade” appeared in the persons of a lively 
delegation conducted by the triumphant 
Straight, all eagerness to display her adored 
twin in this new and exciting role. They 
bought ribbons recklessly, with much deli- 
cious professional encouragement from Fluffy. 
They smiled cheerfully upon Mr. Cannon, 
who lurked in the offing, watching the prog- 
ress of his “ new experiment ” with amazed 
interest. Piloted by Eleanor Watson, they 
ascended to the doll counter, and provided 
themselves with souvenirs of the occasion in 
the shape of dancing dolls which twirled fas- 
cinatingly about a central magnet on top of a 
little tin box. There had been nothing so 


2o6 


BETTY WALES 


nice at the regular toy store, they declared 
loudly, for Mr. Cannon’s benefit. At one 
they escorted the weary Fluffy triumphantly 
to the Tally-ho for luncheon. 

“ He tried to hire me for all the afternoons,” 
explained Fluffy proudly, “ and he says the 
rest of you may come, and Straight too, see- 
ing she’s my twin ; but no more. He doesn’t 
believe in trying noo experiments on too 
sumptoos a scale,” mimicked Fluffy joy- 
ously. 

A good many things besides the easing of 
the lots of a few tired sales-girls came of the 
“ noo experiment.” One was a queer friend- 
ship that sprang up between Fluffy and Mr. 
Cannon, cemented by a compact, on Fluffy’s 
part, hereafter to “ trade for cash,” which Mr. 
Cannon considered the only honest way of 
living, and, on Mr. Cannon’s, to accept Mr. 
Thayer’s offer of rooms in the club-house 
where classes in embroidery and music and 
some amusement clubs might be enjoyed by 
Mr. Cannon’s girls. Then Madeline’s “ Sun- 
day Special ” article on the Harding girls’ 
practical way of helping those less fortunate 
was copied and discussed through the whole 


ON THE CAMPUS 207 

country ; and many women and men who 
had never given the matter a thought before 
realized that shop-girls are human and began 
treating them as if they were. 

Meanwhile Betty Wales, seeing another ap- 
plication of the same principle, got together 
the committee on the Proper Excitement of 
the Idle Rich and made them a proposition. 

“ A store in New York wants two thousand 
ploshkin candle-shades before Christmas. 
They won’t handle less than a thousand. 
Six Morton Hall girls are working their heads 
off to get them ready in time — that means 
that the last shipment must go by the fif- 
teenth. Why can’t you help them out by 
having some candle-shade bees ? ” 

“ I haven’t had a chance to do one thing 
for Christmas myself,” objected Georgia sadly. 

“ Do you usually make all your presents ? ” 
demanded Mary Brooks incisively. “ You 
know you never touch one of them. As the 
presiding genius of the gift-shop department 
and the one and only Perfect Patron of the 
Tally-ho I am bound to help this Excitement 
along. It’s simply absurd for you to rush 
down to Cannon’s every day, and then refuse 


208 


BETTY WALES 


to help the girls in this very college who are 
just as tired and just as much tied down by 
this horrible Christmas tradition of buying 
things all in a heap, regardless of the people 
who have to make them then, or starve. The 
first bee can be at my house,” ended Mary 
sweetly, “ and there will be perfectly good re- 
freshments.” 

The bees accomplished wonders, but it was 
still a struggle to finish the candle-shades in 
time ; and when the Thorn cut her hand and 
the wound got poisoned and wouldn’t heal, 
things seemed nearly hopeless. But little 
Eugenia Ford came nobly to the rescue. 
“ There’s no rule against getting up at three 
in the morning,” she said, and for six con- 
secutive days she woke herself heroically at 
that hour, and cut, pasted, and put together 
candle-shades until dawn, hardly taking time 
for breakfast, but never neglecting her college 
work — she had learned her lesson about 
that. 

At three o’clock on the afternoon of Sun- 
day, the sixteenth, Eugenia hung out a busy 
sign and curled up on her couch for a much 
needed nap. When she woke again, it was 


ON THE CAMPUS 209 

almost dark. She had promised to go to Ves- 
pers with Helena Mason. 

“ I’m afraid I’m late, but she might have 
called for me,” reflected Eugenia, getting 
rapidly into a trailing blue broadcloth dress, 
which, with a big plumed hat, silver-fox furs, 
and a huge bunch of violets, was calculated to 
make a very favorable impression upon the 
Vespers audience. 

When she was ready, Eugenia consulted a 
diminutive watch. “ Quarter to seven 1 ” 
Her expression of consternation gave way 
suddenly to relief. “ I remember now that it 
was two hours fast. No — I changed it. 
Well, it’s surely all wrong.” Eugenia dashed 
down the hall to Helena Mason’s room. Her 
hurried knock was answered by a rather 
grudging “ Come in.” 

“ I’m very sorry to be late,” Eugenia began 
apologetically. 

Miss Mason sat at her desk, writing busily. 
She turned her head at last, and stared hard 
at Eugenia. 

“ I should say you were early myself,” she 
observed, “but why the plumes and the 
train ? ” 


210 


BETTY WALES 


Eugenia seized a tiny alarm clock that 
stood on the floor by the bed, which, for some 
strange reason, was not made up — at Vespers 
time on Sunday. 

“ It is quarter to seven,” she cried aghast. 
“Why didn’t you call me, and why isn’t it 
dark, and what do you mean by saying I’m 
early for Vespers?” 

“ Eugenia Ford, are you crazy ? ” inquired 
Miss Mason sternly. 

Poor Eugenia looked ready to cry. “ I 
don’t think I am. Tell me what I’m early 
for, please.” 

“ Breakfast, of course,” explained Miss 
Mason. “ I got up at six to copy this 
theme. It’s now almost seven — there’s the 
rising bell this minute. As for Vespers, now 
you speak of it I do remember that you prom- 
ised to call for me, but I went to the West- 
cott for dinner yesterday and to Vespers right 
from there, without ever thinking of our en- 
gagement.” 

Eugenia sank down limply on the di- 
sheveled bed. “ Then I’ve slept since three 
o’clock yesterday,” she announced tragically, 
“in my kimono, on top of my couch, you 


ON THE CAMPUS 211 

know. I never heard of such a thing, did 
you ? ” 

The Thorn certainly never had, and she 
was much impressed. 

“ I always supposed that rich girls like 
Miss Ford just thought of clothes and dances 
and traveling and a good time generally,” 
she confided to Betty. “ I never thought one 
of them would wear herself out helping poor 
little me. You've got to be pretty tired to 
sleep like that. I shall always feel differ- 
ently about rich girls after this.” 

And she kept her word. The Thorn's 
sharp point was dulled. Instead of being a 
faultfinder and an agitator she threw her 
influence, which for some obscure reason was 
considerable, on the side of harmony and 
good-fellowship. 

“ I’ve told the third floor to stop spying on 
Esther Bond,” she informed Betty. “ I'm 
convinced myself that she studies out loud, 
and for some queer reason doesn't want 
it known. She's awfully secretive. That 
Helena Mason goes up to see her quite a lot. 
You’d think she'd be proud of knowing a 
prominent girl like Miss Mason, but she 


212 


BETTY WALES 


smuggles her in and out as if she was a poor 
relation. All the same, I guess the way she 
acts is her own affair. She hasn’t said much, 
but she must know she’s being watched, and 
I’ve advised them all to stop it. She looks 
as if she had troubles enough without that. 
I’ve been reading up about ghosts, and they 
do seem to be pretty much made up, specially 
all those seen by several people at one time. 
Did Miss Dick’s school ever find out about 
theirs ? ” 

Betty shook her head. “ The poor little 
girl who got the most frightened by it has 
been terribly ill. They thought last week 
that she was going to die, but she’s much bet- 
ter now.” 

“ Some other girl must be feeling pretty 
bad, if it was done for a joke,” said the Thorn. 

“ Yes,” agreed Betty, “ but Miss Dick 
thinks it was an accident — and little Shirley’s 
strong imagination, of course. I hope she’s 
right. And thank you for taking Miss 
Bond’s part. We don’t want our silly ghosts 
to hurt any one’s feelings or make any girl 
sorry she came to Morton Hall.” 


CHAPTER XII 


RAFAEL PROPOSES 

Madeline worked on her play with the 
furious industry of the “ digs ” she had always 
ridiculed. The floor of her room was littered 
with dusty sheets of manuscript, which she 
mysteriously informed her landlady must not 
be touched, or “the world and all would be lost.” 
She took long, solitary walks, sat for hours at 
her desk or the Tally-ho’s, alternately staring 
hopelessly into space, or frantically covering 
reams of papers with her pretty illegible writ- 
ing. Occasionally she emerged from her 
closely-guarded solitude and gave a tea-drink- 
ing for the B. C. A.’s, at which she adroitly 
turned the conversation to the strangest 
topics; or she bundled some long-suffering 
friend off with her on an endless shopping 
tour or trolley ride, during which she listened 
in complete absorption to chance bits of dia- 
logue, coming home with a delicious new 
monologue for which she insisted on an im- 
213 


214 


BETTY WALES 


mediate audience, “ to test the note of reality,” 
she explained vaguely. 

One day just before Christmas she was 
caught by Mary Brooks in a mellow mood 
and dragged off to dinner, to give Dr. Hins- 
dale a practical demonstration of some of the 
idiosyncrasies of genius. And after Dr. Hins- 
dale had gone to his study, over the second 
round of coffee by the open fire, she explained 
her newest literary device to the bewildered 
Mary. 

“ When I do stunty pageants for my friends 
to act and footless little playlets that don’t mat- 
ter,^ ” she began, “ I just dash them off with- 
out thinking and they turn out beautifully. 
But somehow the idea of writing seriously for 
publication stiffens me all up inside and mud- 
dles my ideas. Heroine always turns into a 
freak or a prig on my hands. Hero gets hys- 
terical when I try to make him earnest. But 
now when things begin to go wrong, I calmly 
tear up what I’ve written, and go out and 
make my little pals talk off the next scene to 
me, or at least recall to my mind how real 
conversation sounds. The awfully romantic, 
lover-y parts I either have to overhear or ex- 


ON THE CAMPUS 


21 5 


tract from people who don’t know me. The 
girl at Cannon’s who is the model for my 
heartless coquette little guesses her proud 
mission in life.” 

“ I should call that just cold-blooded crib- 
bing,” declared Mary indignantly. 

“ Cold-blooded cribbing from life is the 
very top notch of art,” Madeline assured her. 
“ My play is a slice from life. I suppose it’s 
because I’m young and inexperienced that I 
have to keep stopping to refer to life so often 
as I go along.” 

“ Am I in it anywhere ? ” demanded Mary 
eagerly. 

“ You and the girl at Cannon’s and Fluffy 
Dutton and Betty are the principal ingre- 
dients in the heroine,” explained Madeline. 
“ But I defy you to have discovered it for your- 
self, and I swear you to eternal secrecy, be- 
cause people would misunderstand. Life with 
a big ‘ L ’ is the kind I’m cribbing ; I should 
scorn, of course, to put my friends and their 
petty affairs into a play.” 

Mary drew her smooth brows into a puzzled 
frown. “ I suppose I shall understand all 
that when I see the play,” she said with a 


2l6 


BETTY WALES 


sigh. “ George Garrison Hinsdale would 
better be saving up for a trip to New York 
before long, including a box party to the first 
night of your slice from life.” 

“ You’ll have to wait till the second night 
if you want a box,” Madeline told her calmly. 
“ All the boxes are spoken for on the first 
night, and there will be several parties in the 
seats, besides.” 

This calm assumption of success made Mary 
gasp and engage her husband, later in the even- 
ing, in an intricate discussion of the distinction 
between the serene self-assurance of genius and 
the ordinary man’s unjustified conceit. 

Eleanor Watson wanted to join Jim in New 
York. He was sure of being there for several 
months, he wrote her, and equally sure of be- 
ing sent off to “ some miserable hole ” in the 
early spring. 

“ Beating the firm’s time-limit on Morton 
Hall,” he wrote, “ is about the unluckiest 
thing I ever did. They’ve written me down 
for a hustler, and slated me for all the forlorn 
hopes. Remind Betty that she owes me a 
good long letter for that.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 217 

The thing that kept Eleanor at Harding 
was of course the devotion of the Terrible 
Ten to her and to education under her au- 
spices. In vain she had introduced other 
story-tellers ; the evenings that she stayed 
away to give Mr. Thayer's most promising 
candidates a trial were tumultuous revolts, 
or, after she had patiently explained to the 
class how unhappy their disorderly conduct 
made her, spiritless sessions, endured because 
the smouldering fire in Rafael's eyes com- 
manded outward submission from the Ten. 

“ But if you really leave I'm afraid they’ll 
all backslide again," said Mr. Thayer, “ and 
you see they're on probation now to the very 
end of their course. Did Rafael tell you that 
he'd had another raise ? That boy does the 
work of two men, in spite of his bad hand — 
runs the most difficult machine in the factory, 
and makes repairs that we used to have to 
get a man up from Boston to attend to." 

“ How old is he ? " asked Eleanor idly. 

“ Eighteen, he thinks. They’re all older 
than they look or act." 

Eleanor sighed. “They won't be able to 
meet the reading requirements of the factory 


2l8 


BETTY WALES 


law for six weeks yet, and they ought to be 
induced to keep on all winter — certainly the 
ones who are bright enough at their work to 
have any future before them. But it does 
seem absurd for me to stay oh here just be- 
cause ten young Italians listen to my stories 
and eat my peanuts.” 

“ And appreciate the tact and understand- 
ing that you bestow so generously, mixed 
with the peanuts and the stories,” added Mr. 
Thayer soberly. 

That night Eleanor went to Mr. Thayer's 
office after the class to have one more con- 
sultation with him about its future. When 
she came back for her coat and hat a stealthy 
figure slipped past her in the hall. 

“ Did you forget something, Rafael ? ” she 
asked, recognizing her favorite pupil. 

Rafael muttered something unintelligible 
and hurried off, but his return was explained 
when Eleanor found a neatly folded note 
tucked in the sleeve of her coat. 

“ Der Mis ” — it began, “ I luv yu. i haf 
nuther raz. I keep you good lik lada. Wil 
yu haf me to mary, if not I die 

“Yur Rafael. 


ON THE CAMPUS 219 

“ I tak 1 hor a day for wik to make thiz 
note rite.” 

Eleanor read the pathetic little missive 
through with growing dismay. He had mis- 
understood her kindness — the pictures she had 
given him to brighten the dark little hovel 
where he and his family lived, the Thanks- 
giving dinner she had sent them, the special 
smile she always had ready when he ap- 
peared at the club. She started to show 
her note to Mr. Thayer, then changed her 
mind. 

After all, Rafael was in earnest, and she 
would treat his proposal like any other. It 
should be a secret between them. She would 
think out for herself some kindly way of ex- 
plaining that she could not “ haf ” him “ to 
mary,” and that he must not die of a broken 
heart. 

The next evening when the class met she 
smiled at him just as usual, and catching his 
eye early in the evening slipped a note, folded 
as his had been, under his cap. 

In it she had printed, in short easy words 
that Rafael could read, how sorry she was to 


220 


BETTY WALES 


disappoint him, how she liked him for a 
friend, how he must forget what he had 
written and work hard to make the Italian 
girl whom he would love some day proud and 
happy and comfortable. 

“ I can’t treat it as absurd,” she had de- 
cided, “ and I can’t be cross to him. He 
means it all, and he doesn’t dream how com- 
ical it is. I only hope he won’t be too ex- 
cited to read what I’ve written.” 

Evidently he was not, for just as Eleanor, 
having said good-night to the Harding girls 
who had walked up the hill with her from 
their classes, was turning in at her own door, 
Rafael glided out from the shadow of the 
house and stood in her path. 

“ Der is no hope ? ” he demanded tragically, 
standing bareheaded before her. 

“ Oh, Rafael,” Eleanor remonstrated, “ I 
always speak the truth to you, don’t I ? I 
wrote you a note because you wrote me one ; 
and now you ask me if I mean it. Why, 
dear boy, I’m almost old enough to be your 
mother.” 

“ I love you,” Rafael told her stoutly. 

“ Then please me by acting sensible. You’re 


ON THE CAMPUS 221 

much too young to think about marrying and 
I ” 

“ You luf anodder,” broke in Rafael accus- 
ingly. 

Eleanor flushed pink under cover of the 
darkness. Hardly to herself even did she 
admit the part that Richard Blake played in 
her thoughts. Indeed so skilfully had she 
concealed it that Dick Blake, working day and 
night to push “The Quiver ” to the top of the 
magazine world, was wont to smile scornfully 
to himself when he thought how little he and 
his valiant efforts meant to the girl who, in 
all his hopes and plans and dreams, was to 
share his future. 

But in a swift moment’s consideration 
Eleanor decided that the best way to cure this 
sentimental little Italian boy of his infatua- 
tion was to let him know that he had indeed 
a successful rival. Telling Rafael was differ- 
ent from admitting it to any one else — because 
Rafael was foolishly in love too. 

She stretched out her hand impulsively and 
patted his shoulder. “ Yes, Rafael,” she 
whispered softly, “ I’m in love with some- 
body else. But he doesn’t know it yet, and 


222 


BETTY WALES 


I’m not sure that he cares for me. Nobody 
knows it but you, and I’m telling you because 
I ” 

“ Good-bye, lovely lada, good-bye.” Rafael 
caught the hand that lay on his shoulder, 
kissed it in his passionate, foreign fashion, 
and glided away into the darkness. 

Eleanor stood looking after him with the 
curious sensation of being the heroine of a 
pretty old-time romance that belonged in a 
fairy world of magic and moonlight, and 
ought to be set to the tinkling music of 
guitars. And just as she had put out her 
light and gone to bed, still smiling at the 
whimsicality of the whole affair, and partic- 
ularly of her having confided to Rafael her 
carefully-secreted feeling for Dick — who would 
do beautifully for the brave young prince of 
the fairy-tale the music came. The Terrible 
Ten were grouped under the window singing 
soft, crooning Italian songs to their Lovely 
Lada. Giuseppi had traveled with his father 
one summer in a troupe of street musicians ; 
it was his fingers that picked a bit uncertainly 
at the guitar’s strings, and little Nicolo’s won- 
derful voice, rising sweet and true above the 


ON THE CAMPUS 223 

others, that led the chorus. But Rafael stood 
in the centre of the half circle, his angelic 
face touched with light from a down-stairs 
window, and the sob and the thrill in the 
music, that brought a lump to Eleanor’s 
throat and a mist over her eyes, was all in 
Rafael’s voice, singing out his love and long- 
ing to the cruel lady who would not “ haf” 
him “ to mary.” 

Eleanor had a bunch of red roses on her 
table that the adoring Eugenia Ford had sent 
her, and she tossed them down to the singers, 
who laughed and cheered in most unromantic 
boy fashion, and finally departed, leaving 
Eleanor to wonder how Rafael had explained 
the serenade to his followers, and how he 
would treat her at the next club meeting. 
She little guessed what would happen before 
then. 

For the next morning before she was dressed 
an apologetic parlor-maid escorted a weeping 
Italian girl to Eleanor’s door. It was Pietro’s 
flashing-eyed sister, her beauty tear-stained 
and her proud confidence quite vanished. 

“ Rafael’s hurt,” she sobbed. “ Black Hand 
maybe, we think. He don’t know nothing, 


224 


BETTY WALES 


but he moan your name with his eyes shut. 
Would you come ? ” 

Of course she would come. She hurried 
the maid off after the best doctor in Harding, 
and she and the beautiful Maria went at once 
to Rafael, who lay tossing in delirium on his 
blood-stained bed, a terrible gash across his 
throat, which had been roughly bandaged by 
an old Italian herb doctor. Nobody, it 
seemed, guessed what had really happened, 
though when some one found a tiny dagger 
under the bed Pietro and Nicolo interchanged 
curious glances. They had recognized it as 
the one with which Rafael had struck terror 
to the hearts of the Ten and compelled their 
rigid obedience. 

Eleanor installed a trained nurse, made the 
doctor promise to give the case his best atten- 
tion, and went off to find her unfailing stand- 
by in troublous times, Betty Wales. For 
Rafael was beyond knowing anybody, per- 
haps for all time, and she felt like a criminal 
when his mother kissed her sleeve in grati- 
tude for all she had done and Maria clung to 
her, sobbing out her love for Rafael who 
never had “ eyes for any girl ” and declaring 


ON THE CAMPUS 225 

that if he died she would enter a convent. 
She couldn’t bring herself to tell them the 
dreadful truth. 

But, “ If he dies I shall be a murderer,” 
she told Betty bitterly. “ I’ve always been so 
vain and frivolous. Now when I want to 
take life seriously and do things for other 
people, as you do, I only make a mess of it, 
and bring dreadful trouble where I wanted 
most to help. I shall never, never try to do 

anything more. I wish I were ” 

“ No, you don’t,” Betty assured her hastily. 
“ Just because you did the best you could for 
those boys and this silly one had his head 
full of sentimental nonsense doesn’t make you 
responsible. It’s a dreadful thing, of course, 
but I’m sure he’ll get well. Didn’t the doc- 
tor think so ? ” 

The doctor hadn’t said. 

“ Then I’ll leave word for him to telephone 
you here of any change either way,” Betty 
decreed. “ Mrs. Post is going to make Ger- 
man Christmas cakes this morning for the 
girls. She wanted me to help her, but I’ve 
got to go to the Tally-ho before chapel and 
then to the office, so you simply must help 


226 


BETTY WALES 


instead. I suppose you haven’t had any 
breakfast, have you now ? ” 

Eleanor didn’t want any. 

“ Of course you do. I’ll send some up by a 
maid, and Mrs. Post will tell you when she’s 
ready to begin on the cakes. Remember, the 
telephone messages will come here, so you 
must stay till I get back.” 

Six times that morning Betty left an accom- 
modating friend in charge of her office, and 
in the short intervals between clients rushed 
over to inquire for the cakes, Eleanor, and 
Rafael. At noon she snatched a moment be- 
fore luncheon to tell Mr. Thayer all about 
it — Eleanor had declared she never could do 
that — so that he could explain what was 
necessary to the authorities and avoid a futile 
search for non-existent Black Hand plots and 
family feuds. Mr. Thayer had seen Rafael 
and the doctor, and the doctor had been very 
encouraging. Betty flew back to assure 
Eleanor that he had not been deceiving her — 
that he had said the very same things to Mr. 
Thayer — and to beg her assistance that after- 
noon at the Tally-ho workshop. For Made- 
line had come out of her dramatic eclipse 


ON THE CAMPUS 


227 


long enough to design some Christmas din- 
ner-cards, and there was a small fortune in 
them if only they could be put on sale in 
time. Secretly Eleanor thought that Betty 
had grown just a little bit selfish and very 
commercial since they had left college ; but 
she could not well refuse, after the dainty 
breakfast on a tray and all the calls and the 
arranging with Mr. Thayer, to help with the 
Christmas dinner-cards. 

Next day Rafael was worse. The doctor 
looked serious and suggested a night-nurse 
and a consultation. At noon Eleanor de- 
clared that the air of the little workshop 
stifled her, and Betty gave up office-hours — 
an unheard-of proceeding — to go for a long 
tramp, during which she planned all sorts of 
delightful things that Eleanor should do for 
Rafael when he got well. 

The next day the boy was better, the day 
after that worse. But at the end of a nerve- 
racking week of alternating hopes and fears 
the doctor pronounced him out of danger. 
That very afternoon Jim telegraphed that he 
was sick with a cold and needed Eleanor. 
Jim had always hated coddling, Eleanor com- 


228 


BETTT WALES 


mented wonderingly, and failed to notice 
Betty’s dimple flashing out in a tiny smile 
that was at once sternly suppressed. For Jim 
had written her that he only hoped he could 
preserve “ the faded shadow of a suspicion of 
a snuffle” until Eleanor’s arrival. “ After 
that,” he concluded, “ I count on my new 
bull pup, suitors galore, and the diversions of 
little old New York to blow away any re- 
maining relics of melancholy. When the 
poor little chap is well enough dad and I will 
see him through the best trade-school we can 
find and give him every chance that’s coming 
to him. Adoring some girls is a thing no fel- 
low can or ought to help.” 


CHAPTER XIII 


GENIUS ARRIVES 

Betty Wales was going home for Christ- 
mas — a “ ploshkin ” income puts life on such 
a comfortable financial basis ! And between 
Christmas and New Year’s Babe was going to 
be married. That meant coming half-way 
back to Harding for the wedding ; and it 
made easier Betty’s sad decision that since the 
stocking factory was willing to postpone its 
Christmas party till New Year’s, and since 
most of the Morton Hall girls would spend 
their vacations in town, and certainly be very 
forlorn indeed unless somebody looked after 
them, it was the duty of Miss B. Wales, Secre- 
tary, to come back early and lend a hand. 

Betty breathed a deep sigh of relief when 
she had seen Eleanor off to New York, in the 
company of Madeline Ayres, who had finished 
her play and now flatly refused to delay the 
putting on of the final touches in New York 
for the interests of the Tally-ho’s gift-shop de- 
partment. 


229 


230 


BETTY WALES 


“ Why, my dear girls,” she declared trag- 
ically, “ I’m not half through yet. I’ve got 
to see every success on Broadway now, to get 
into touch with the season’s fads. Then I 
shall *supe’ a few times, to catch the right 
feeling for one or two bare spots in my first 
act. Finally, I shall probably hate my play 
so that I’ll tear it up and take the next boat 
for Naples, to be consoled by my Bohemian 
family, who will laud me to the skies for 
tearing up a play because I considered it bad 
art.” 

“ Oh, Madeline ! ” came in horror-struck 
chorus at this point. 

“ Well,” Madeline admitted blandly, “ I’m 
willing to confide to friends that at present 
my humble effort looks to me like the play 
of the year — and I’m fairly stage-wise already. 
Dick Blake used to advise all the aspiring 
dramatic critics he knew to take me along to 
their big first nights, because I can always tell 
by instinct what the audience is saying to it- 
self. I’m a perfect mirror of public opinion. 
If I still believe in my play after I’ve been 
’round a little I shall see Miss Dwight and 
her manager. After that ” Madeline 


ON THE CAMPUS 


231 


shrugged her shoulders, and confided irrele- 
vantly to the resident B. C. A.’s, who had 
come down to see the travelers off, that she 
wanted a black velvet hat with a white 
feather. 

“ And I'm going to have it, what's more," 
she ended. “I wrote dad, and he just said, 
* It's lucky you don't want two white feathers, 
now isn’t it?' And he sent along a munifi- 
cent check." 

Which proved, Betty said, that genius is 
not incompatible with frivolous-mindedness. 

Jim sniffled manfully on their arrival, and 
his carefully marshaled “ features " diverted 
Eleanor beautifully, especially after she had 
been up to Harding once to see Rafael, who, 
after he began to mend, progressed with 
amazing rapidity on the road to recovery. 
Because she had dreaded seeing him, she was 
relieved to get the meeting over, and much 
more relieved to find the boy so completely 
changed. As soon as it could be managed he 
had been moved to a hospital, and the new 
atmosphere, supplemented by good care and 
kindness, had done wonders for him. Before 
he was well enough to leave, Mr. Thayer de- 


232 BETTY WALES 

dared, Rafael would be completely Ameri- 
canized. 

He greeted Eleanor with a frank smile 
above his big bandages. 

“ I awful silly boy,” he said, holding out a 
thin hand to her. “ I guess you want laugh 
at me. I guess you tink I know not how 
gran’ you live in this country. Now I know. 
I know two, tree nurse-lady and many visitor- 
lady, looka like you. I like to live here al- 
ways. I hope I get well awful slow.” 

But, when Eleanor had delivered Jim’s 
message about Rafael’s going, as soon as he 
was strong enough, to a fine trade-school in 
Philadelphia, he changed his mind. 

“ Den I hope I get well awful fast. Before 
I get old, I know how all de wheels in dis 
world go round, mebbe. I think you be mad 
at me, and now you do me dis great big 
splendor.” 

“ Oh, no, I wasn’t ever 1 mad ’ at you,” 
Eleanor explained, “ only sorry you were so 
silly, and dreadfully frightened when you 
were so ill the first week.” 

Rafael shrugged his shoulders. “ Good 
ting for me. I come here. I learn how to 


ON THE CAMPUS 233 

be 'Merican man in two, tree weeks. I 
come here silly lil foreign boy. I look 
roun\ I listen hard. I see how you do 
here in your gran’ country. And now/’ Ra- 
fael snuggled into his pillows with a beatific 
smile, “ I find why all dose wheel go roun’. 
I maka fine machine, mebbe. I swear off 
carry a dagger. And 1 tank you alia my life.” 

So Eleanor could return to Jim, the bull 
pup, the suitors, and the diversions of New 
York, with the happy assurance that in the 
end Rafael's devotion to her might be the 
making of him, and at the least its untoward 
climax would do him more good than harm. 
Having nothing now to worry about, she de- 
voted the journey back to New York to plan- 
ning a ravishing new gown for Babe’s wed- 
ding. It was to be yellow, because Dick 
Blake (who would not be at the wedding) 
liked yellow gowns on her best ; and very 
plain, because Dick liked simple lines and 
no furbelows. Details might safely be left to 
Madame Celeste. It would perhaps be more 
accurate to say that Eleanor devoted the 
journey back to New York to thinking about 
Dick Blake. 


234 BETTT WALES 

Babe’s wedding was to be a grand society 
function. 

“ To please John’s father and my mother,” 
Babe wrote to her friends of 19 — ; “John 
and I are resigned, because a wedding only 
lasts for one evening, and after that we can 
shut ourselves up in our regular castle of a 
house, with only the people we want, and 
everything you can think of in your wildest 
dreams to amuse ourselves with. So one lit- 
tle evening isn’t much to sacrifice. Mother 
says we owe it to our social position. She 
doesn’t know that we have decided not to 
have any social position. We’re just going 
to have a good time and try to make some 
good times for other people. An impromptu 
wedding would have been lots more fun, but 
you must all come, just the same.” 

Babe’s sister was to be maid of honor, Bob 
and Babbie, Betty and Roberta Lewis were 
to be bridesmaids, and the other “ Merry 
Hearts ” would sit together in a front pew, 
and be considered just as much in the wed- 
ding party as if they were bridesmaids also. 
Jasper J. Morton was coming up the night of 
the wedding in his private car. He had 


ON THE CAMPUS 235 

meant to come the day before “ to help you 
entertain Miss B. A. and her friends,” he 
wrote Babe, but there were important di- 
rectors 7 meetings to keep him at the last 
minute. He wrote Babe not to worry about 
him. “ I shall charter a special train if nec- 
essary — and don’t I always arrive on time as 
a matter of principle ? ” 

But when Babe left the house for the 
church he had not appeared, and after they 
had kept people waiting and wondering half 
an hour, and Babe was so nervous that she 
declared she should cry in one more minute 
it was decided to go on without him. 

The reception was half over when he ap- 
peared, looking very meek and sheepish. He 
kissed Babe on both cheeks, shook John’s 
hand till it ached, and despatched Babbie to 
“ find those reporter fellows and tell ’em I’m 
not smashed up anywhere between here and 
New York, and I don’t withhold my blessing 
from the happy couple. Tell ’em I was acci- 
dentally detained, and if they want to know 
how say it was on a private matter that is 
none of their business.” 

“ And add some characteristic remarks 


BETTY WALES 


236 

about the ridiculous apes who try to run our 
railroads,” put in John with a chuckle. 

“ No, sir,” said Jasper J. Morton, with em- 
phasis, “ not this trip. Pretty nearly every 
mile was a record, and I’ve recommended that 
engineer to run the road’s Lightning Limited 
at a big increase over his present pay. The 
reason I didn’t get here was personal — purely 
personal.” 

Later in the evening he got Babe and John 
and Betty into a corner, and told them all 
about it. “ Miss B. A.’s to blame, as usual,” 
he began. “ You see my train went out just 
ten minutes behind the Lightning Limited, 
with no stop till Albany and the track 
clear all the way west. I was hurrying 
through the station to get on, when I nearly 
ran down a pretty little woman who was cry- 
ing so hard she didn’t see me coming. She’d 
lost the Lightning Limited, and her husband 
was dying in a little place just beyond Al- 
bany where he’d gone on business and been 
taken suddenly sick. There was a slow train 
in an hour, but that would be too late, she said. 

“ Naturally I told her to come with me to 
Albany. And then of course I couldn’t leave 


ON THE CAMPUS 237 

her there to hunt up her connection alone, 
and have to waste time waiting, maybe. So 

I arranged for a stop at the town she was 
going to, and then,” Jasper J. Morton flushed 
shamefacedly, “ when nobody met her, we 
side-tracked our outfit and I drove up to the 
hotel with her. She was barely in time, the 
doctor said. They’d been married just a year 
to-day, she told me. I guess if ever you two 
are in a tight place you’ll be thankful to any- 
body who misses his boy’s wedding to help 
you out. But I wouldn’t have those reporters 
out there know what a soft-hearted old auntie 
I’m getting to be, not for anything. Miss B. 
A., you’ll be the ruin of me yet, with all your 
theories about looking out for the other 
fellow.” 

“ We’ll be married all over again if you’d 
like us to, Father Morton,” Babe offered 
gallantly, although she had assured John after 
the ceremony that she wouldn’t ever have 
promised to marry him if she had realized 
the queer feelings you have while you are 
doing it. 

But Mr. Morton refused her generous offer. 

II I’m satisfied,” he said, “ as long as John’s 


BETTY WALES 


238 

got you for a wife and I’ve got you for a 
daughter. My seeing it done wouldn’t have 
made any big difference to you ” 

“ Oh, yes, it would,” broke in Babe kindly. 

“ Not the difference it made to that poor 
little crying lady to see her husband,” pur- 
sued Mr. Morton. Then he chuckled merrily 
as Babbie appeared, looking very angry and 
quite absurdly pretty in consequence. “ Were 
those reporters inquisitive ? ” he demanded. 

“They did think you stayed away on pur- 
pose,” declared Babbie indignantly. “ As if 
any one could possibly disapprove of Babe 1 I 
told them you were just as fond of her as 
John is. And now they’re discussing what 
effect your being late will have on Wall 
Street. They said to tell you that, and to 
ask you please to come out and talk to them, 
if you didn’t want the market to collapse to- 
morrow like a pricked balloon. They laughed 
right in my face when I said it was a 1 private 
affair ’ that kept you.” 

“I’ll settle them,” said Jasper J. Morton, 
and went off muttering something about 
“ those chimpanzees that run the newspapers.” 

Whereat John looked relieved. “ First time 


ON THE CAMPUS 


239 


lie’s acted natural to-night,” he said. “ If he 
hadn’t gone up in the air pretty soon, I 
should have telegraphed his doctor. But 
now we can start on our wedding trip feeling 
perfectly safe about him.” 

Madeline couldn’t come to the wedding. 
She had sent her play to Miss Dwight’s man- 
ager, and now she was exerting all her in- 
genuity to get a personal interview with Miss 
Dwight herself. 

“ Her present play isn’t going well, and 
she’s as cross as a bear,” Madeline wrote Babe. 

“ Dick Blake knows her — had dinner with 
her just before I came down. She said that 
night that she believed in her play, and if it 
failed she should lose all faith in American 
audiences, buy a lake in Maine and a river in 
Florida, and retire from the stage. Dick says 
she will never do that, but he thinks it’s no- 
use talking my play to her in her present 
mood. He got the manager of the Lyric Re- 
pertoire Theatre to say he’d read the manu- 
script, and now he’s perfectly furious with me 
because I persist with Miss Dwight. * Agatha 
or nobody ’ is my war-cry ! If she’d only 
read my play or talk to me, one or the other, 


240 


BETTT WALES 


I know there wouldn’t be any more trouble. 
That play fits her like a glove, and it will 
take — oh, how it will take ! ” 

When college opened again Madeline was 
still on Miss Dwight’s trail, but almost ready 
to give up and let the Lyric manager, or any- 
body else who wanted it, take her play. Miss 
Dwight’s manager had made no sign. Miss 
Dwight herself, piqued by her first failure, 
had entrenched herself behind unassailable 
barriers. 

“ I’ve tried everything,” wrote Madeline 
despairingly. “ I got ‘ The Sentinel ’ to send 
me to interview her, and she wouldn’t let me 
in. The Enderbys gave a dinner for her ; 
she accepted and then sent word she was ill. 
Dick Blake relented and tried to introduce 
the subject of his talented young friend, and 
she would hear none of me. 

“ To-night I’m playing my last card. If it 
doesn’t take the trick, why, I’ve lost, that’s 
all. Rumor says that her manager has had 
six hundred plays sent him this last week — 
of course he won’t find mine under that pile.” 

For two weeks thereafter the pen of the as- 
piring playwright was silent. Betty and 


I 



JUST AS THEY HAD GIVEN HER UP 






A 













































































































































































































































































ON THE CAMPUS 


241 


Mary Brooks decided that she was busy get- 
ting her play out from under the pile of other 
manuscripts, in order to send it to the de- 
spised manager of the Lyric. So they^were 
surprised and delighted when Betty received a 
rapturous, incoherent scrawl, announcing 
complete success. 

“ She took it. She’s rehearsing it now. 
The part does fit her, just as I said it would. 
She’s coming up with me soon to see Harding. 

“ With love from the happiest girl in New 
York, Mad. 

“ P. S. — Plan a B. C. A. tea-party for to- 
morrow. I can’t wait any longer to tell you 
all about it.” 

The B. C. A.’s assembled joyously, and just 
as they had given her up Madeline appeared, 
trying hard to act offhand and unconcerned, 
and managing it about as badly as might have 
been expected of a young person whose first 
play was being rehearsed with much enthusi- 
asm by Agatha Dwight, and advertised far 
and wide by her manager as the play of the 
year. 

The B. C. A.’s plied her with tea, muffins, 


242 


BETTY WALES 


and jam, which she despatched promptly, and 
with questions, which she totally ignored, 
giving them all sorts of irrelevant information 
about Eleanor’s music, Jim’s dog, and Dick’s 
splendid serial, by a “ dark horse” in fiction- 
writing, which was doing wonders for the 
subscription list and the standing of “ The 
Quiver.” When she had finished three cups 
of tea and uncounted muffins, she settled back 
in a corner of the Tally-ho stall with a sigh of 
complete satisfaction. 

“ Now,” she said, “ I’ll tell you all about it. 
It’s much too good a story to mix up with 
crumpets and tea, like ordinary conversation. 
And don’t interrupt, or I shall be sorry I 
came.” 

Awestruck silence met this dire announce- 
ment, and Madeline began. 

“ I wrote you about the interview I couldn’t 
get, the dinner Miss Dwight wouldn’t come 
to, the time she snapped Dick off so short, 
and all that. There were other things of the 
same kind — a reception the Woman’s College 
Club gave for her, when she swept in looking 
like a princess, made a funny, fascinating 
little speech, and swept out again. Well, I 


ON THE CAMPUS 


243 


was to have introduced her to people that af- 
ternoon, and I’d counted on making her no- 
tice me and so getting my chance. I didn’t 
get it that way, but I made a discovery. 

“ I found that a girl who had a walking part 
in the first act of her play and another in the 
last, and who was down on the bills as An- 
nette Weeks for one and Felicia Trench for 
the other, was a Harding girl named plain 
Mary Smith. That is, she didn’t graduate, 
but was here a year or two just before our 
time. Well, I went to that ridiculous play 
every night for a week, until I knew every 
bit of the Weeks-Trench business as well as 
Mary Smith herself. Then I waited for her 
at the stage door after a matinee, took her 
for tea somewhere, told her what I wanted, 
and begged her to play sick and let me do her 
part for a week or two. 

“ At first she laughed at me — said she might 
play sick all she could, but I wouldn’t get the 
place. Besides, I was taller than she. What 
would I do for clothes ? Before I could get 
the dresses made the play would be done for. 
For a minute I was stumped by that — I hadn’t 
thought of clothes. Then I remembered 


244 


BETTT WALES 


Eleanor’s super-elegant wardrobe, and I knew 
she’d lend me some things under the circum- 
stances. And I saw that Mary Smith was in 
the same mood as Miss Dwight, — discouraged 
over the play and worried at being left in 
mid-season without a part. So I talked hard, 
all about my play and the honor of Harding, 
and the college girl’s elevating the stage by 
writing as well as by acting. And then I put 
it to her : 4 You’ve got nothing much to lose, 
and I’ve got everything to gain. Can you 
act?’ She shook her head. ‘ Miss Dwight 
took me on because she wants to encourage 
nice girls to go on the stage. There’s a walk- 
ing part in nearly every play, so she’s kept me.’ 
* There’s a walking part in my play,’ I told her, 
4 and if this one isn’t good for over two weeks 
you can rest and go to the theatre and save 
your dresses for another part.’ 1 All right,’ she 
said. 1 Of course you get the salary,’ I said. 
‘ Give me a pencil,’ she said, ‘ and 111 write 
you the reference.’ That’s how I landed in 
Agatha Dwight’s company, exactly two weeks 
ago to-night.” 

Madeline paused dramatically. Mary 
Brooks opened her mouth to ask a ques- 


ON THE CAMPUS 245 

tion, and closed it again hastily, gasping 
like a fish. Helen Chase Adams got as far as 
the initial “ burble ” of “ but,” and stopped 
spasmodically. Madeline had impressed 
them all with the importance of obeying 
the rules of the occasion. 

“ That,” she said, looking around the circle 
with a pleased smile, “ is chapter one. The 
n«xt thing was to get Her Highness to notice 
me. The first night, as she swept by me on 
her way to her car, she inquired for the girl 
I'd ousted, and said it was refreshing to find 
an understudy who didn’t need breaking in. 
After that she never looked at me for four 
days except in the scenes, and then with a 
vacant sort of a stare and a stage smile. But 
the next night she turned giddy in the first 
act, and I managed to improvise a parlor 
story that fitted well enough into the scene 
while she snuffed smelling-salts and pulled 
herself together, so that the audience never 
guessed that anything was wrong. She 
looked awfully angry — at herself or me, I 
couldn’t tell which. But the manager patted 
me on the back, and perhaps because he told 
her to she sent for me to come to her in the 


BETTY WALES 


246 

long intermission. And I went, of course, 
and she asked me all about myself, and she 
liked my answers. So I plunged right in. 
The manager spent the night finding my play 
for her, and she spent the morning reading it 
and the afternoon talking to me about.it, and 
the next day they began rehearsals — with 
the walking lady back in her part. I ex- 
plained about her, and Miss Dwight thought 
it was a lovely story. She’s got a real Hard- 
ing sense of humor ; and she’s coming up 
here before long to see the place. That’s all.” 
Madeline leaned forward to reach for the 
muffin plate, and perceiving it to be empty 
hastily leaned back again. 

Mary summoned Nora. “ More muffins, 
please,” she ordered, “ and don’t look so re- 
proachful, Nora, please, over our appetites. 
Miss Madeline has been too busy lately prov- 
ing that she’s a genius to take time to eat. 
Now she’s making up for it.” 

“Oh, and is that what’s to pay?” said 
Nora, smiling comprehensively at the B. C. 
A.’s. “ Provin’ anything is hard worrk. I 

could never prove me sums at school. That’s 
because they was generally wrong. It’s awful 


ON THE CAMPUS 


247 


hard to prove what ain’t so, ain’t it now, 
Miss Madeline?” And Nora departed ami- 
ably for more muffins, ignoring the bursts of 
laughter that followed her. Nora had long 
since ceased to attach any significance to the 
laughter of the Harding girls. They laughed 
just as other people breathed. It was as un- 
accountable as the enormous number of muf- 
fins they consumed. 

They were still laughing when Nora came 
back with Mary’s order. They sent her off 
again for hot tea, and they drank Madeline’s 
health in it, and Miss Dwight’s, and the 
health of the Walking Lady who had helped 
Madeline to play out her trump card. They 
congratulated Madeline riotously, they made 
wonderful plans for Miss Dwight’s visit to 
Harding, and others for seeing the first night 
of the play. 

“ We are at last justified in the eyes of the 
wide, wide world,” declaimed Mary pom- 
pously. “ We’ve been called the cleverest 
crowd in college, and now we’ve shown ’em. 
A well-kept husband like mine and a well- 
kept tea-room like Betty’s are nice little fea- 
tures, but a play for Agatha Dwight is the 


BETTY WALES 


248 

real thing. And the moral of that is : Look 
out for a genius, and the grand-stand play 
will look out for itself.” 

“ And the moral of that,” said little Helen 
Chase Adams primly, “ is that it’s time for 
faculty wives to dress for dinner.” 

“ Also campus faculty,” added Rachel 
hastily, and the most exciting B. C. A. tea- 
drinking of the season reluctantly dispersed. 


CHAPTER XIV 


AS A BULL PUP ORDAINS 

Harding College was almost as excited 
over Madeline’s play as the B. C. A.’s had 
beeiv 

“ Why, she wrote it in this very town,” 
wide-eyed freshmen told each other. 

“ In this very room, maybe,” diners at the 
Tally-ho added wonderingly. 

“ And she’s only been out of college a year 
and a half.” 

“ I guess our little Catherine will be heard 
from some day. Miss Ayres was the leading 
literary light of her class, just like Cath. I 
can tell you these college reputations mean 
something ! ” 

“ Did you hear how she got Miss Dwight to 
read her play ? ” 

“ What’s it about, anyway ? ” 

“ Nobody knows — it’s a dead secret. But 
college girls come into it, I guess, because 
Miss Dwight is going to visit Miss Ayres up 
here — to study the atmosphere, I suppose.” 

249 


250 


BETTY WALES 


“ I’m going in for elocution this next semes- 
ter. If I get a good part in the senior play, 
I shall seriously consider going on the stage. 
Miss Dwight encourages college girls to do that. 
She thinks it offers a splendid field for edu- 
cated women.” 

So was Harding College once more stage- 
struck, and Miss Dick's school as well. The 
Smallest Sister carried the great news there, 
and Frisky Fenton and her crowd bought Miss 
Dwight's pictures to adorn their dressers, and 
bribed the Smallest Sister, by the subtlest arts 
known to the big girl for beguiling the little 
one, to arrange a dinner-party for them at the 
Tally-ho on the night when Miss Dwight was 
to be there. 

“ You promised me a spread down there 
long ago," the Smallest Sister urged Betty. 

“ But I shall be so very busy that night," 
Betty objected. “ Couldn't you come by 
yourself then, and have the party later ? " 

“But the others want to see her just as 
much as I do," Doroth}' urged. “ Frisky 
said she would about die of joy if she could 
see her, and so will all of them. And they’ve 
been awfully nice to me." 


ON THE CAMPUS 251 

“ All right/' said Betty resignedly, “ only I 
can't sit with you and you’ll probably have a 
very poor dinner, because the tea-shop will be 
so crowded." 

After all, one table more or less wouldn't 
matter, she reflected, on a night when practi- 
cally every Harding girl would try to get her 
dinner at the Tally-ho. 

Miss Dwight off the stage was a demure 
little lady with wonderful eyes, a smile that 
made people who saw it smile back in spite of 
themselves, and a voice that thrilled one no 
matter what its owner said. Her hair was 
gray, and so were her clothes, when they 
weren't black. She hated attention, shrank 
forlornly behind Madeline when the girls 
stared or sang to her, and only came to dinner 
at the Tally-ho because Madeline had assured 
her that it was, at the dinner-hour, the very 
soul and centre of the college world. 

Having come, she exclaimed rapturously at 
all the “ features," and then, perceiving that 
she was the chief of them, she hid in the re- 
motest corner of Jack o’ Hearts' stall, with 
Madeline on one side for protection and Mary 
and Betty to talk to across the way. Her big 


25 2 


BETTT WALES 


hat drooped so far over her face that girls 
who rudely looked in as they went by the 
stall saw nothing but the soft curve of her 
cheek and her chin cleft by a big dimple — un- 
less it happened to be a moment when she had 
boldly resolved to look out upon these “ won- 
derful, frightful collegians.” Then she lifted 
the brim of the absurd hat with a fascinating 
gesture, and smiled her clear, child-like smile 
at the curious passers-by. 

Dorothy’s table was the one nearest to Jack 
o’ Hearts’ stall, so that she and her friends 
came in for a generous share of Miss Dwight’s 
smiling inspection of her surroundings. But 
that wasn’t enough for Frisky Fenton. 

“ I’ve just got to speak to her,” she de- 
clared. “ If she’s as retiring as you say, Dot, 
I’m afraid we shan’t get any chance later. I 
think I’ll go over there now.” 

“ But I’m afraid Betty wouldn’t like it,” 
objected the Smallest Sister anxiously. 

“ Well, if she doesn’t, she won’t blame you,” 
retorted Frisky, “ and I shan’t mind being in 
hot water with her, as long as I get a chance 
to talk to Miss Dwight. I can make it all 
right with your sister afterward, I’m sure.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 253 

“ Please don’t go, Frisky,” begged Dorothy, 
sending imploring glances across at Betty, 
who was perfectly oblivious of the Smallest 
Sister’s efforts. “ It’s not polite to go where 
you’re not invited. Betty said she’d have us 
meet Miss Dwight later if she could.” 

Frisky gave an irritating little laugh. 
“ You don’t understand about such things, 
dear. I’m not a child, to be sent for with des- 
sert.” And with that she jumped up and 
crossed quickly to Jack o’ Hearts’ stall, where 
she appeared, a very pretty, demure, totally 
inexplicable vision, before the astonished 
party of diners. She nodded to Betty and 
Madeline, smiled at Mary, and curtseyed, with 
dropped eyes, before Miss Dwight. 

“ Excuse me, Miss Dwight,” she said 
sweetly, “ but do you think I’d be a success 
on the stage? I’m crazy about it.” 

Miss Dwight laughed heartily at the absurd 
question. “ Sit down, my dear,” she said, not 
seeming to mind the unwarranted invasion of 
her privacy. “ Are you one of these astonish- 
ing Harding girls ? ” 

“ No, I’m only at school,” explained Frisky 
calmly, “ but I’m as old as some college girls. 


2 54 


BETTT WALES 


And anyway, isn't it better to begin acting 
when you're very young ? " 

Miss Dwight stared at her, a sombre shadow 
in her great dark eyes. “ You're far too pretty 
to begin young," she said. “ Some day, if 
you really want it, and your mother is will- 
ing " 

“ I've only a stepmother," put in Frisky 
airily, “ so I needn't consider that." 

Miss Dwight looked at her again. “ It’s a 
hard life, my dear — a long pull, and very 
little besides more hard work for you if you 
win, and if you never do make good — and 
most of us don't " 

“ Oh, please don't discourage me," Frisky 
broke in impulsively. “ It’s the one thing 
in life for me." 

“ Wait till you have some idea about life 
before you say that," Miss Dwight advised her 
rather sharply. “ Make friends with your 
stepmother, to begin with. If you can do 
that now, perhaps some day you can make 
friends with an audience. Go back to school 
and study hard. Read the great plays and 
the great poems. And in five years, if you're 
still stage-struck, come to me — and I’ll give 


ON THE CAMPUS 255 

you some more good advice. Good-bye, my 
dear.” She held out her hand with a definite 
gesture of dismissal that even Frisky could 
not ignore. 

“ Good-bye, and thank you,” said the girl, 
“ but five years is an awfully long time to 
wait, Miss Dwight. You may see me sooner.” 

With which parting shot, Frisky returned 
to her horrified friends more stage-struck 
than ever, and more confident of her ability 
to manage any situation to her liking. Her 
vanity would have received a severe shock if 
she had heard Miss Dwight call her a silly 
child, Madeline emphasize the fact that Frisky 
wasn’t a college girl, or a type of even the 
shallowest variety, and Betty confide to Mary 
Brooks Hinsdale that she was thoroughly 
ashamed of the Smallest Sister’s new chum. 

The next morning Frisky sent Miss Dwight 
a bunch of violets and a gushing note, which 
her divinity refused to read because “ the 
handwriting made her nervous.” But there 
was also a note from Helena Mason, enclosing 
a little verse which she asked permission to 
print in the next “ Argus.” Miss Dwight 
laughed and cried over it, declared it was 


BETTY WALES 


256 

the best thing that had ever been written 
about her, and made Madeline take her at 
once to see the author, who gushed, in con- 
versation, as badly as Frisky had on paper, 
and seemed to have the vaguest possible ideas 
about Miss Dwight’s genius, which she had 
described so aptly in her poetical mood. 

“ All literary people are bores but you, my 
dear,” Miss Dwight declared, hurrying Made- 
line away. “ I discovered that years ago, but 
I’m always forgetting it again. If anybody 
else sends me a poem, please remind me to 
shun her. Time in Harding is too precious 
to be wasted.” 

Miss Dwight could stay away from New 
York only two days — “ two sweet, stolen 
days,” she called them. Then she hurried 
back to the rehearsals, leaving Madeline in 
Bett}'’s charge. 

“ She’s done all that she can for her play 
now,” she explained, “and she’d far better 
stay here. She might make us nervous, and 
she’d certainly make herself miserable. Re- 
hearsals are such contrary things. They’ve 
gone so abominably up to now that I’m ab- 
solutely sure the play will be a hit.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


2 57 


The nature of the hit was still a mystery. 
Madeline, Miss Dwight, and her manager 
were all stubbornly dumb. The title wasn’t 
even put on the bill-boards until a week 
before the opening night, and then it might 
mean anything — “ Her Choice.” 

Nearly all the B. C. A.’s were going down 
to see the first performance, but the one who 
was most excited at the prospect, next to 
Madeline, was undoubtedly Eleanor Watson. 
Her gowns had figured in Madeline's “ walk- 
ing part,” but that wasn’t the chief reason for 
her interest in the play. The great thing was 
that Richard Blake was giving a box party 
and a supper, and he had asked her and Jim 
to come. Dick had almost never taken her 
anywhere, and this winter he had been too 
busy even to come often to call. Yet Made- 
line seemed to see a good deal of him. 

“ He doesn’t care for me. Why should 
he? ” Eleanor had reflected sadly. “ He likes 
Madeline because she’s clever about the same 
sort of things that he is interested in. And 
yet when he does come to see me, he looks 
and acts as if ” 

And then Dick had telephoned about the 


BETTY WALES 


258 

box party. “ It’s almost never that I can ask 
you to anything you really care about,” 
he had said, “ so do say you'll come this 
time.” 

And when Eleanor had accepted, declaring 
that she always enjoyed doing things with him, 
he had taken her challenge. “ Then I shall 
ask a pretty girl for your brother and two dull 
pairs of devoted people who won't bother us. 
Remember it's to be our very own party — only 
I can’t come for you because ‘ The Quiver ' 
goes to press that night, and I shall have a 
form to 4 O. K.' between seven and eight.” 

Eleanor decided to wear her new yellow 
dress. At noon a huge bunch of violets ar- 
rived with Dick's card. At three Jim sent 
a messenger for his evening clothes. He 
wouldn’t be able to get home to dinner. He 
might come for Eleanor at quarter to eight ; 
if not, he would send a cab. Eleanor went 
across the street very early to the hotel where 
they took their dinners, and afterward slipped 
out of her street clothes and into a kimono, 
and curled up on the couch by the sitting- 
room fire to rest until it was time to dress 
for the evening. By and by she stretched 


ON THE CAMPUS 


259 


luxuriously, sat up, and without turning on a 
light went down the hall to her room. As 
she felt for the electric switch a low angry 
growl sounded from within. It was Peter 
Pan, Jim's new bulldog. He was feeling 
neglected, probably. Jim took him for a 
walk or romped with him indoors nearly 
every evening. 

“ Why, Peter!” Eleanor called persuasively. 
“ Poor old Peter Pan ! Were you lonely and 
bored and very cross ? ” 

Another growl, and the noise of Peter’s 
claws digging into the matting, as he scram- 
bled to his feet. Eleanor turned on the light 
hastily, but Peter, unpropitiated and growling 
angrily, came forward a step or two and stood 
defiantly, ready to resist any encroachment 
on his domain. 

“ Why, Peter, you silly dog,” coaxed 
Eleanor. “ Don’t you know me ? Did you 
think I was a burglar coming in the dark to 
rob your dear master ? Well, I’m not. Come 
here, Peter, good dog ! ” 

Generally Peter would have come pattering 
across the floor, eager to lick Eleanor’s hand. 
To-night he only growled again and showed 


260 


BET TV WALES 


his teeth. Eleanor had had very little ex- 
perience with dogs, and she was horribly 
frightened at Peter’s extraordinary behavior. 
She remembered that when she came down 
to New York and was introduced to the apart- 
ment and to the room that Jim had moved 
out of because it was the largest and pleasant- 
est he had to offer her, Jim had warned her 
to “ go slow ” with Peter Pan. 

“ He seems to have a little prejudice against 
strangers, especially ladies,” Jim had said. 
“ He snapped pretty hard at the janitor’s wife 
one day when she was making my bed. She 
won’t come in now unless he’s out or chained. 
Don’t try to pet him if he acts cross. He 
may resent your moving into my special 
quarters.” 

But Peter Pan had never acted cross or re- 
garded Eleanor as an interloper, and Eleanor 
had petted him, taken him walking in the 
park, and quite forgotten Jim’s warning until 
now. 

“ Peter,” began Eleanor desperately again, 
“ please stop growling. I’ve got to dress, and 
to do that I’ve got to come in where you are 
and go right past you to my dressing-room. 


ON THE CAMPUS 261 


Now be a good dog and cheer up.” Peter 
Pan paid no attention to this pathetic appeal. 
He growled again in a low but menacing key, 
and yawned, showing all his teeth once more 
in the process. 

Eleanor shivered and retreated a step or two 
so that she could see the clock in the sitting- 
room. Twenty minutes past seven ; if Jim 
came for her, she could dress and arrive 

late, but if not On a chair near the 

door of her room were the walking skirt 
and blouse she had taken off. Near by 
were her black pumps. She had changed 
her stockings to a pair of pale yellow silk 
ones, leaving those she had taken off in the 
dressing-room, with her yellow dress and 
evening cape. Unless Jim came, she must 
appear at Dick’s party in yellow stockings, 
black shoes, a mussy linen blouse, and a blue 
serge street-suit, or she must pass that growl- 
ing dog twice in order to get her evening 
things. She wouldn’t be downed ! There 
was a dog-whip in the hall ; she would get 
that and armed with it make the fatal dash. 
Then she remembered Jim’s warning. “ He’s 
a dandy dog, but a puppy’s temper is always 


262 


BETTY WALES 


uncertain. So go slow and don’t get near 
him when he’s low in his mind.” 

Visions of herself pinioned helplessly in 
Peter Pan’s vise-like grip until Jim, fright- 
ened at her failure to appear at the theatre, 
should appear, perhaps after she had endured 
hours of agony, to rescue her, kept Eleanor 
from going after the dog-whip. Bulldogs 
did maim and even kill people. Even a yel- 
low dress, chosen especially to suit Dick’s 
fastidious taste, wasn’t worth that risk. But 
if she went in her street suit they would 
all laugh at her and say that there wasn’t 
any risk. Two big tears dropped from Ele- 
anor’s eyes and rolled down her cheeks. 
She brushed them away scornfully, and 
crooning soft speeches to Peter Pan reached 
for the black pumps, the mussy blouse, and 
the walking skirt. Having secured them, 
she slammed the door upon the hateful dog, 
locked it, and dressed before the tiny mirror 
over the mantelpiece. Her tricorn hat and 
her coat were in the hall, but Dick’s violets 
were in the dressing-room. Eleanor almost 
wept again as she thought of them. If only 
Jim came for her ! But he didn’t — he sent 


ON THE CAMPUS 263 

a puffing taxi, whose driver stared curiously 
at her yellow stockings as he held open the 
door for her. 

Everybody in the theatre lobby seemed to 
be staring. Eleanor’s face flushed as she hur- 
ried to Dick’s box. As she pulled back the 
curtain Dick jumped to meet her — and he 
stared at her stockings. The dull devoted la- 
dies and the pretty girl for Jim were in very 
elaborate evening gowns — and they stared at 
her stockings, then at her mussy shirt-waist, 
and her plain little hat. 

“Introduce me quick,” pleaded Eleanor 
softly to Dick, who was trying to take her 
coat, “ and then I can explain my clothes. 
No, I can’t take off my coat. It’s all the fault 
of that horrid, hateful Peter Pan.” 

Dick smiled at her blandly. “You look 
just as lovely as usual. In fact I like you 
best of all in plain dark things. Didn’t some 
violets come ? ” 

“ They were in the dressing-room too, be- 
hind that miserable dog. If Jim ever comes — 
I must sit somewhere back in a comer.” 

“ You must sit there with me beside you.” 
Dick pointed to a chair in the front of the box. 


264 


BETTT WALES 


“ Don’t you really mind? ” demanded Ele- 
anor. “ Of course the stockings are the worst, 
and they won’t show ” 

“ I asked you to come to our very own 
party,” Dick told her, “ not your clothes. 
I’ve got plenty of clothes here already. Come 
and meet them, and tell them about the hor- 
rid Peter Pan. Did he chew up your entire 
wardrobe while you were out?” 

It was a very funny story when once you 
were free to see it that way. The dull devoted 
couples got quite hysterical over it. Jim, 
when he came, was almost as bad, though he 
assured his sister soberly that she had done 
very well to “ play safe ” when Peter Pan was 
low in his mind. 

“ Most girls think all a man cares for is 
clothes,” said Dick, as the orchestra played 
with lowered lights waiting for the first cur- 
tain. 

“ And most men think a girl cares only for 
flowers and candy and suppers.” 

“ Before the wedding — and clothes and serv- 
ants and all the luxuries she’s used to after- 
ward,” added Dick a little bitterly. 

“ Whereas,” Eleanor took him up, “ if a 


ON THE CAMPUS 265 

girl loves a man, she is willing to do without 
all but the plainest, simplest necessities. 
What she wants is a chance to help him, to 
be with him through thick and thin, to watch 
him make good, and to feel that she has a 
little bit of a share in the fine things he's 
doing and going to do.” 

She never could have said it if the lights 
had been on. She even flushed in the dark 
as she saw Dick lean forward to look into her 
eyes. 

“ Do you mean,” he asked eagerly, “ that 
you'd feel that way yourself? ” 

“ I mean that any and every nice girl feels 
that way.” 

Just then the curtain went up, but for all 
Dick's interest in Madeline's play, his hand 
was crushing one of Eleanor's, and his heart 
was pounding so hard that the first act was 
half over before he had gathered his wits to 
know what it was all about. 

The minute the curtain rang down, Dick 
turned to Eleanor. “ In that case,” he said un- 
der cover of the applause, “ you've got to prom- 
ise to marry me now. I can give you a 
good deal besides love and a chance to help, 


266 


BETTY WALES 


but I've waited almost two years without dar- 
ing to say a word, and I’ve been frightened to 
death for fear I should lose you to some fel- 
low who could speak sooner.” 

“ You needn’t have worried,” Eleanor told 
him, “ because I was waiting too. But I con- 
sider that you’ve wasted two whole years for 
me out of my life. You’ll have that to make 
up for, monsieur. Can you do it ? ” 

“ I can only try,” said Dick very soberly. 

The play was a triumph for Miss Dwight 
and for the author. That young person was 
sitting alone in the last row of the peanut gal- 
lery. Occasionally she pinched herself to 
make sure that she was awake, and just before 
the final curtain fell she crept softly out and 
went home by herself in a jolting, jangling 
Broadway car. There Dick and Eleanor 
found her rocking by the fire, the inevitable 
black kitten in her lap. 

“ Come to supper,” Dick said. “ You prom- 
ised, and the taxi waits.” 

Madeline smiled dreamily up at them and 
patted the kitten. “ Yes, Dick, I’ll come to 
supper as long as I needn’t dress up for it. 
What’s the matter, Eleanor?” 


ON THE CAMPUS 267 

“ I want to know how you knew,” de- 
manded Eleanor eagerly. “ How you guessed 
exactly how I’ve felt all these years about — 
about everything and — and Dick.” 

Madeline smiled. “ If every woman in the 
audience wants to know that,” she said, “ the 
play goes. The shop-girl next me in the gal- 
lery wants to know, and Miss Dwight, and now 

you Excuse me, Eleanor, but where did 

you get those stockings ? ” 


CHAPTER XV 


A GAME OF HIDE-AND-SEEK — WITH “ FEATURES ” 

Babe seized upon Eleanor’s engagement as 
the best possible excuse for a week-end party. 

“ Living in a castle is rather a fright/’ she 
confided to Betty. “ John doesn’t mind it, 
because he’s always lived in a near-castle. I 
get lost. I’m afraid of the butler. The Eng- 
lish housekeeper drops her aitches so fast 
that I can’t tell what she wants to ask me. I 
forget the names of my horses. And when 
John is in town I haven’t anybody to play 
with.” 

“ Seems to me you’re not a very enthusias- 
tic newly-wed,” Betty told her laughingly. 

“Oh, yes, I am,” Babe declared very ear- 
nestly. “ I love John, and I love Father Mor- 
ton, and I love my house. Only I rattle 
around in it like a pea in a band-box. While 
I’m growing up to fit my surroundings I’ve 
got to have the assistance of all my friends. 
Will you come to my party, Betty? I’m 
268 


ON THE CAMPUS 269 

going to ask Father Morton, because he knows 
Mr. Blake, and besides he missed all the fun 
of the wedding.” 

So Betty, resolving to “ ’tend up ” to busi- 
ness strictly for the rest of the year, took an- 
other week-end off to celebrate the engagement, 
see Babe’s gorgeous mansion, and help make 
up to Mr. Morton for losing the wedding — all 
on her account, as he persisted in saying. 

Babe’s house, which had been Mr. Morton’s 
wedding gift to her, was up on the Hudson, 
in a suburb so discreetly removed from the 
noise and dust of the railroad that nobody 
lived there except “ carriage people.” The 
wide roads wound in sweeping curves along 
the river, between lilac hedges, now capped 
with snow. In front, Babe’s territory sloped 
through great gardens to the water ; behind 
she had a real wood of her own. Inside the 
house the stately rooms were crowded with 
expensive furniture and beautiful bric-a-brac. 
Mr. Morton had taken Babe shopping and 
bought everything she had as much as stopped 
to look at. A famous decorator had been 
sent up to arrange the house and fill in the 
gaps. There was a fireplace taken bodily 


2JO 


BETTT WALES 


from a Florentine palace, a Rembrandt that 
had once graced a royal gallery, a rug that 
men had spent their whole lives in weaving. 

“ I shall never know what we’ve got,” 
sighed Babe, as she led the way through her 
domain. “ Father Morton loves to surprise 
people. He says I haven’t discovered half 
the special features that he’s put in just to 
amuse me.” 

“ If I were you I should feel like a princess 
in a fairy tale,” sighed little Helen Adams, 
who had never in her life imagined anything 
half so splendid. 

“ I don’t,” said Babe stoutly. “ Princesses 
have to wear long velvet dresses and look 
sweet all the time. Just as soon as I dare, 
I’m going to get rid of at least half the serv- 
ants, so I can roll up my sleeves and go 
down to the kitchen. I learned to make 
bread at cooking-school before I was married, 
and it was a picnic.” Babe paused and gazed 
joyously at her guests. “ I’ve thought what 
would be a picnic to do right on this very af- 
ternoon, before you’ve even seen the rest of 
the house. To play hide-and-go-seek.” 

“ Babe,” began Mary Brooks sternly, 


ON THE CAMPUS 271 

“ you’re still the Perfect Infant. Do you 
think it befits married ladies like you and me 
to indulge in children’s games ? ” 

Babe answered by running down the long 
hall, pulling the reluctant Mary after her. 

“ John,” she cried when they reached the 
little library that John had seized upon for 
his den and in which he was now entertain- 
ing the masculine portion of the house party, 
“ John, we’re going to play hide-and-seek all 
over the house. Isn’t that a grand idea ? ” 

“ Great,” agreed the devoted John. 

“ Then come along, everybody,” ordered 
Babe. “ Will you play too, Father Morton ? ” 
4 ‘ Of course I will,” said Jasper J. Morton 
testily. “ One of the things this house is in- 
tended for is a good game of hide-and-seek. 
I didn’t forget that you were a little tomboy, 
child. I didn’t expect you to grow up all at 
once just because you’d promised to love and 
obey my boy John.” Jasper J. Morton 
paused to chuckle. “ Some of the best fea- 
tures of this house are still undiscovered. 
Maybe they’ll come out in the course of this 
game.” 

Babe hugged him rapturously. “ We dis- 


272 


BETTY WALES 


covered the hidden bowling-alley last week,” 
she said. “ You were a duck to put in so 
many surprises right under my very nose, 
when I thought I was picking out everything 
and doing all the planning myself.” 

Mr. Morton laughed gleefully. “ You like 
my surprises, do you ? Independently of 
their being surprises, I mean. When young 
people build a house they never think of the 
most important things. For instance, there’s 
no reason, just because you’re going to have a 
new house, why you shouldn’t keep to some 
of the good old ways. Most new houses are 
no earthly good for little tomboys to play in. 
Do you hear that, Watson ? Too bad I got 
this place started before I met you. You’d 
have learned a lot of things about your busi- 
ness if you’d built this house for me.” 

“ I don’t doubt that, sir,” said Jim duti- 
fully. 

“ Keep your eyes open this afternoon,” 
Mr. Morton advised him mysteriously. 
“ There are features in this house that the 
head of your firm wouldn’t be capable of in- 
venting. Architects are like sheep — they fol- 
low the last fashions. Now when I’ve been 


ON THE CAMPUS 273 

abroad, I’ve studied buildings over there. 
When I see a good thing in some old house in 
a little moss-grown town like Harding, I re- 
member it. I also study character. Just as 
Morton Hall is adapted to Miss B. A. and her 
protegees, so this place is adapted to John and 
this little tomboy. I exercise prevision when 
I build. Why, I foresaw this very game of 
hide-and-seek, so to speak. Just give a little 
study to the habits and tastes of your clients, 
my boy, and you’ll make a name for yourself. 
That’s the way to build ; study character and 
exercise foresight.” 

“ Thank you, sir,” said Jim respectfully. 

“ Eny, meeny, miny, mo,” began Babe has- 
tily, having had quite enough of architectural 
theories. The lot of being “ it ” first fell 
upon her, and John’s den was chosen as 
goal. 

“ Remember,” Babe told them, “ you can 
go anywhere except to the kitchen. I 
shouldn’t dare to chase you there. Open any 
door that you see ” 

“ Particularly any door you don’t quite 
see,” put in Jasper J. Morton mysteriously. 

“ It’s too early for skeletons,” laughed 


274 BETTY WALES 

John, “so you needn't be afraid of the 
closets." 

“ I shall count my hundred awfully fast," 
announced Babe, suiting the action to the 
words with a promptness that sent her guests 
scuttling for hiding-places. 

The first person to be caught was Helen 
Adams, who confessed that she hadn't dared 
to go into any rooms but the down-stairs ones 
that were obviously meant for guests ; and no- 
body had gone far or had happened upon any 
very difficult hiding-places. But the next 
time, led by Babe, the party ranged far afield, 
and it took so long to find them all that a 
ten-minute limit was arranged ; after ten min- 
utes' hunting those who were not found could 
“ come in free." Nobody was surprised that 
Dick and Eleanor should forget this privilege 
at the end of a round, but when Betty had 
twice failed to appear Babe declared that she 
must have found one of Father Morton's real 
hiding-places, and the whole party started off 
in search of her. Up-stairs and down again 
they went, opening closets, hunting in chests, 
under beds, behind portieres. Babe declared 
that she was at last learning the way around 


ON THE CAMPUS 275 

her domain, and discovering any number of 
extra cupboards and closets ; but neither she 
nor anybody else discovered Betty. 

At four the butler caught his flyaway little 
mistress long enough to announce to her 
that tea was served in the yellow drawing- 
room. 

“ We shall have to go,” she said sadly, 
rounding up her guests. “ I shouldn’t dare 
to tell him that we were too busy playing 
hide-and-seek. Besides, I’m hungry, for one. 
Betty will hear us all in there together, and 
know we’ve given her up and come out. 
Let’s all shout together ‘ We give up ’ I ” 

So the big house echoed to their chanted 
“ We give up,” and then they repaired to the 
yellow drawing-room, where Babe sat on a 
carved oak throne and poured tea, from a 
wonderful silver pot wreathed with dragons, 
into cups so fragile that you could have 
crushed them as you would a flower. There 
were muffins and crackers and sweet sand- 
wiches and nuts and ginger, all of which 
tasted very good to the hungry “ liiders.” 
And in the midst of tea there was an excite- 
ment, in the shape of a telegram summoning 


BETTY WALES 


276 

Mr. Morton, Senior, to a conference on board 
a train that would reach this station in less 
than ten minutes. 

“ Have to miss dinner, I, suppose, but I'll 
be back to-night sure,” he grumbled as Babe 
pulled on his coat, John found his gloves and 
hat, a valet packed his bag, in case of emer- 
gency, and the butler rang for the chauffeur to 
bring around a limousine. “ Where’s Miss 
B. A. ? ” he demanded as the car appeared. 
“ Hasn’t she come out yet ? Well, if the rest 
of you have any gumption, you’ll take her 
dare and find her. I say, Watson, you know 
how a house is built, and you know that Miss 
B. A. is worth finding ” 

“ Train’s whistling, dad,” broke in John. 

“ Then the automobile speed limit has got 
to go smash again,” said Jasper J. Morton re- 
signedly, jumping into the car. “ Find her, 
Watson. She’s worth it,” he called back, 
waving his hand spasmodically as the car 
shot round a curve and out of sight. 

Most of the young people had gathered in 
the hall to see Mr. Morton off, but little 
Helen Adams, feeling rather shy and out-of- 
place, had crept back into the drawing-room, 


ON THE CAMPUS 277 

which, lighted only by the fire and the 
candles on the tea-table, seemed so rich and 
dim and lovely that to be alone in it made 
her give a long deep sigh of joy and satisfac- 
tion and wonder at the idea of plain little 
Helen Chase Adams spending the week-end 
with a gay house party in such a splendid 
place. 

She had just seated herself in a great 
cushioned chair by the fire to enjoy it all — 
Helen was one of the people who must be 
alone to drink their pleasures to the full — 
when she heard a little tap on the wall so 
close to her that it made her jump. But in a 
minute she settled back again comfortably. 
“ Mice or a bit of loose plaster,” she decided. 
But an instant later there came a little low 
moan — an eery sort of muffled cry — and this 
time she screamed and jumped quite out of 
her chair. The door had just been shut after 
Mr. Morton, and Babe came running in, fol- 
lowed by all the others, and at a respectful 
distance by the stately butler, to ask what the 
matter was. 

“ Why, I don’t know,” said Helen anx- 
iously. “ Something or somebody cried out in 


BETTY WALES 


278 

another room, and it sounded so near me and 
so queer, some way, that I screamed. I’m 
sorry I frightened all the rest of you too.” 

“ Mamie the parlor-maid always gives a 
heartrending shriek when she breaks one of 
my favorite wedding presents,” suggested 
Babe mournfully. “ It was probably Mamie 
— only why should she be dusting and break- 
ing things at this time of day? ” 

“ Why indeed ? ” demanded Madeline scorn- 
fully. “ Did it sound like a pathetic parlor- 
maid, Helen ? ” 

“ It didn’t sound like any real person,” 
Helen explained slowly. “ It was muffled 
and far away and choked — like a — why, like 
a ghost ! ” 

“ Exactly,” cried Madeline triumphantly. 
“ Babe, don’t you see what’s happened ? One 
of the highly advertised features of your 
domicile has come to light. Your respected 
father-in-law, realizing that no castle is com- 
plete without a ghost — he remembered Bab- 
bie’s, probably — built in one, warranted to ap- 
pear to persons sitting alone in the firelight. 
And you try to pretend it’s only a parlor- 
maid in distress.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


279 

“ I hope it wasn’t Betty in distress,” put in 
Eleanor Watson. 

“ I’m really afraid she’s locked in some- 
where,” said Babe anxiously. “ Didn’t a girl 
in an old story once hide in a chest in a game 
like this, and get faint and finally smother? 
Did the noise sound as if it could have been 
Betty, Helen ? ” 

Helen confessed that it might have been al- 
most anything. 

“ Thomas,” Babe turned to the butler, “ will 
you please take two of the servants and hunt 
in the cellar for Miss Wales ? I’ll take the 
up-stairs rooms, and John, you and the men 
hunt down here, and then go up to the attic. 
Open all the chests and cupboards. Oh, dear, 
I wish this house wasn’t so big ! ” 

Search “ up-stairs, down-stairs, and in my 
lady’s chamber” revealed no Betty. Eleanor, 
passing the door of the yellow drawing-room, 
thought she heard another cry, but when, re- 
inforced by Dick and John, she went in to 
listen for its repetition, all was still. Nobody 
was under the furniture or in the next room, 
and the open fires in both rooms made the 
chimney an impossible retreat. But it was 


28 o 


BETTY WALES 


from near the chimney that Eleanor thought 
the cry had come, and Helen had been sitting 
near the fire when it sounded in her ear. 

“ She must be in one of the secret chambers 
that Mr. Morton broadly hinted at,” said 
Madeline finally. “ But why, if she went in, 
doesn’t she come out ? ” 

Jim Watson had been frenziedly active in 
searching chests and cupboards. Now he was 
knocking on the wall near the fireplace and 
running back and forth between the two ad- 
joining rooms, taking note of the position and 
thickness of the partitions. 

“ There’s a passage between these rooms,” 
he announced at last, “ and a shaft or a stair- 
case or something running up in this corner. 
See — there’s a square taken out. But how 
you get in, I can’t see.” 

“ Oh, do try to see,” begged Babe eagerly. 
“ You know Father Morton said you could 
learn a lot from this house. I wish we knew 
for sure that she was in there and ” — Babe 
choked a little — “ all right.” 

“ Knock hard on the wall,” suggested Mr. 
Blake. “ Maybe she’ll hear that better than 
our talking, and answer it.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 281 


Regardless of priceless wall-hangings Babe 
seized a pair of brass tongs and pounded on 
the wall as if she meant to break it down. 

“ Go easy, Babe,” advised Madeline, but 
Babe only pounded harder. 

“ If she’s in there we want to know that 
she’s all right,” declared Babe hotly. “ And 
then we’ve got to get her out if we have to 
batter down this wall to do it.” 

“ How will you know Betty’s knock from a 
ghost’s ? ” demanded Madeline flippantly, but 
no one paid any attention to her because just 
at that moment a faint knock did sound on 
the other side of the wall. 

Babe gave a little cry of relief. “ Then she 
isn’t suffocated ! That story has just been 
haunting me. Now, Mr. Watson, you know 
how a house is built, to quote Father Morton. 
You must find how to get to her.” 

Jim looked as if he wanted to use the tongs 
as a battering-ram, but he refrained. “ I’ll 
try up-stairs,” he said. “ Maybe the entrance 
is there.” 

“ I’ll show you which rooms are over these,” 
volunteered John. 

But there was no opening up-stairs. 


282 


BETTY WALES 


It was Helen Adams who made the next 
suggestion. “ If a stairway goes up, mightn’t 
it go down too? Perhaps you can enter from 
the cellar.” 

And sure enough half-way down the cellar 
stairs Jim discovered a little door. 

“ May be a snap lock that’s kept her in,” 
he muttered irritably. “ Hold it open, El- 
eanor. Here, Thomas, let’s have your elec- 
tric bug. Hello, Betty ! Betty, I say ! ” 

“ Here I am,” called a faint, frightened little 
voice from up above. “ Here I am, but where 
I am I don’t know, and I think I’ve sprained 
my ankle.” 

Ensconced on the couch in John’s den Betty 
had her belated tea, while Babe rubbed the 
turned ankle vigorously, and the others stood 
around listening to the tale of ghostly ad- 
ventures. 

“ I got in up-stairs,” Betty explained, 
“ through a sliding panel sort of thing that 
opens out of that curved part of the hall.” 

“ Of course,” Jim put in. “ We looked on 
the other side.” 

“ I shut the door so no one else would find 
it,” explained Betty, “ and of course it was 


» 



THE OTHERS STOOD AROUND LISTENING 
























































































































* 














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• • 












* 



















































































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• . 









ON THE CAMPUS 283 

pretty dark, though there is a little high win- 
dow opening into the hall to light the first 
part of the passage.” 

“ I know — looks like a ventilator,” in- 
terrupted Jim again. 

“ But when I came to the flight of stairs, I 
didn’t see them,” Betty took up her story, 
“ and I wasn’t expecting stairs, so I fell most 
of the way down and landed with one foot 
under me. I was frightened and the pain 
made me faint. I called once, but nobody 
answered. I felt as if I was in an old dungeon, 
like those we saw in France, and if I moved 
or called rats would come and bite me, or I 
should drop into a well and drown. Besides, 
I hadn’t the least idea how to get back. Of 
course it was perfectly silly. I called once 
more after a long while, and once I thought I 
heard some one scream. And then, ages after, 
there were knocks and I knocked back. 
That’s all. Did some one really scream or 
did I imagine that?” 

“ I did. I thought it was a ghost,” ex- 
plained Helen. 

Betty laughed. “ I’m pursued by ghosts 
these days. The Morton Hall girls hear 


BETTT WALES 


284 

them, and Dorothy and poor little Shirley 
Ware — why, I wonder if there could be a 
secret passageway at Miss Dick’s ! It’s an 
old, rambling sort of house. I must ask 
about it when I go back.” 

But by the time Betty had spent a week on 
a couch at Babe’s, recovering from her 
sprained ankle, her mind was so full of more 
important things which must be attended to 
“ at once if not sooner,” to quote Emily’s 
delightful formula, that she quite forgot to 
inquire of Miss Dick about the secret passage. 
It was better, too, perhaps, to let sleeping dogs 
lie. Shirley was back at school again, and 
her wan little face must be a sad reminder to 
any big girl who had played a practical joke 
on her. Miss Dick still felt sure that there 
had been no joke — that Shirley had conjured 
up a ghost out of her own imagination. It 
would be a bad plan, possibly, to stir the 
matter up again. 


CHAPTER XVI 


THE MYSTERY DEEPENS 

At least once every week Betty dropped 
into Mrs. Post’s room to talk over the progress 
of their charges and the state of the house in 
general. 

“ The Goop is as bad as ever,” Betty com- 
plained one windy afternoon in March. “ I’ve 
just been up in her room — she’s begun again 
throwing whatever she doesn’t need at the 
moment under her bed, and whenever she’s 
in a hurry or especially happy at meal times 
she shovels things in with her knife. Do you 
think she ought to be allowed to stay here 
another year ? ” 

“ Maybe she’ll decide to stop studying and 
teach for a while,” suggested the optimistic 
Mrs. Post. “ She’s thinking of it. But if it’s 
important for her to learn tidiness and table 
manners — which it certainly is — she certainly 
is more likely to do it here than anywhere 
else, with me nagging at her and you looking 
sweet and sorry. Now I’ll warrant she’s down 
285 


286 


BETTY WALES 


on her knees this very minute clearing up her 
floor, because you saw it looking disorderly. 
She thinks a lot of pleasing you. And the 
other girls don’t mind her habits much ; she’s 
good for them as a horrible example.” 

“ The Twin Digs have been reported again 
for lights after ten,” said Betty, who was in a 
downhearted mood. 

“ Only once since — since — well, I’m afraid 
I can’t truthfully say since Christmas,” 
laughed Mrs. Post. “ I guess what those two 
need is a show of firmness. I’ll see them to- 
night and tell them that the very next time 
means a report to President Wallace.” 

“ Miss Romance has had three callers again 
this week, hasn’t she ? ” 

“ Three calls, but only one caller. She’s 
settled down to one now, and I guess he’s all 
right — he seems to be a real nice country 
boy. He lives in the little place where she 
does, and he walks six miles and back each 
time he comes to call. Seems to me that 
shows he’s fond enough of her to mean busi- 
ness. As for her, college is all nonsense for a 
girl like that. She hasn’t sense enough to 
take it in. She’d better be at work or helping 


ON THE CAMPUS 287 

her mother, or making a home of her own. 
She’ll always be silly and rattle-pated and 
provoking to sensible people, as long as she 
lives. I’ve told her so — I mean I’ve advised 
her not to straggle along here through the 
whole course.” 

Betty sighed. 11 1 suppose you’re right. 
Not every girl is capable of getting much out 
of college. Well, anyway, there’s always the 
Thorn to congratulate ourselves on. She’s 
really turning out to be a very pleasant, help- 
ful person to have in the house.” 

Mrs. Post nodded. “ She’s your triumph, 
and Esther Bond is mine. She says she’s 
been happier down in this room talking to 
me about my three girls and the weather and 
the price of eggs and the way the laundry 
tears our linen than she’s been before in her 
whole life. I wish I could make her see that 
if she enjoys being friends with a stupid old 
lady like me, she’d enjoy ten times more being 
intimate with girls of her own age. She 
doesn’t dispute me. She just smiles that ter- 
ribly tragic smile of hers, shakes her head, 
and changes the subject.” 

“ Do you suppose some one has hurt her 


288 


BETTY WALES 


feelings?” asked Betty. “ Or is she just 
naturally secretive and reserved ? ” 

“She’s naturally very confiding,” declared 
Mrs. Post. “ Seems as if she was friends with 
everybody in the village where she lived when 
she was little. Something’s happened, and 
it’s happened since she came here, I think. 
But whatever it is she’s bound nobody shall 
ever know about it. And when she makes 
up her mind she makes it up hard and to 
stay.” 

“ I wonder if the ghost noises have stopped, 
or if the Thorn has just suppressed the re- 
ports ? ” Betty queried. “ I never quite un- 
derstood why the Mystery didn’t complain 
the day they nearly battered down her door.” 

“ She’s never even mentioned it to me,” 
Mrs. Post declared. “ She seems to hate to 
talk about an} 7 thing connected with her col- 
lege life. She acts smart enough. She 
doesn’t have any trouble keeping up with her 
classes, does she? ” 

Betty shook her head. “ She’s very good 
in most things — I asked Miss Ferris about her 
— only she never answers except when she’s 
asked directly, and then she says just as little 


ON THE CAMPUS 289 

as she can. Miss Raymond had her over one 
day this winter to tell her that her themes 
were very promising, only they stopped just 
when the reader was beginning to be inter- 
ested. But Miss Bond said she always wrote 
down all that she thought of on each subject, 
and she acted so frightened and unhappy that 
Miss Raymond let her go home and hasn't 
tried to encourage her since. It must be 
dreadful to be so shy that every one thinks 
you're offish, and even the faculty don’t dare 
to pursue their efforts to help you along. 
Just think, Mrs. Post ! She might be one of 
the leading writers in her class, if she'd only 
let Miss Raymond take an interest in her 
work. Couldn’t you talk to her about it? 
I'm sure she’d enjoy the recognition, and per- 
haps when she felt that she had a position of 
her own in the college she’d be willing to 
come out of her shell and make friends." 

“ I'll try to lead up to it some way," Mrs. 
Post promised warily. “ She never wants to 
talk about college affairs, you see." 

A night or two later Betty was awakened 
out of a sound sleep by one of the Twin Digs, 
who stood over her with a candle, explaining 


290 


BETTY WALES 


in a sepulchral whisper, “ There's a girl in a 
fire-escape dangling outside my window." 

Betty rubbed her eyes, sat up, and, having 
thus assured herself that she was not dream- 
ing nonsense, asked the Dig what she meant. 

“ Why, there's a girl in a fire-escape dan- 
gling outside my window," repeated the Dig 
hopelessly. “ You know the new rope fire- 
escapes that are in all our rooms ? Well, she 
evidently got into one up on the fourth floor, 
and started to slide to the ground, and some- 
how it's stuck with her half-way down. I 
mean the part you put over your shoulders, 
that’s on a pulley to slide down the rope, has 
stuck and won't slide. I couldn’t possibly 
pull her in alone, and I thought I'd better 
call you." 

“ Yes, of course." Betty jumped out of 
bed, and followed her incoherent informant 
up-stairs to a third floor single. The window 
was wide open and, sure enough, just out of 
reach, a girl, clearly visible in the moonlight, 
hung in mid-air, clinging to a dangling rope. 
When she saw the two figures appear in the 
lighted window, instead of calling to them or 
asking help or advice, she threw her whole 


ON THE CAMPUS 


291 


weight on the rope and gave one furious jerk. 
The pulley suddenly began to work again and, 
caught unprepared, she lost her hold on the 
rope. It slipped swiftly through her fingers 
and she was carried downward at a terrific 
rate, landing with a thud on the rose bed un- 
der the window. 

Betty and the Dig had watched her descent 
in helpless horror. Now Betty seized the 
candle and raced down-stairs and out into the 
cold night, the Dig automatically following. 
Bound to the back of the house they went, 
both expecting to find a senseless body, 
bruised and bleeding, on the ground. In- 
stead a girl was walking rather stiffly out 
from among the burlap-swathed rose-bushes. 

“ I’m not hurt,” she called softly. “ You’ll 
catch cold. Bun back to your beds, please, 
and don’t mind me.” 

Betty paused in amazement, and suddenly 
realizing that it was indeed bitterly cold for 
kimonos and Turkish slippers over bare feet 
she thrust the candle, which the moonlight 
rendered useless, into the Dig’s hands, and 
ordered her back into the house. 

“ I’ll come and see you later,” she explained. 


292 


BETTY WALES 


“ Take the catch off the door for me. I want 
to be sure she really isn’t hurt, and ” 

Betty hurried off. It wasn’t necessary to 
explain to the Dig how college discipline 
demanded that she discover the identity of 
the girl, and her reasons for making an exit 
from Morton Hall in so unconventional a 
fashion. 

The girl was limping down the road toward 
the Belden House. “ Wait ! ” Betty called, 
running after her. “ It’s Miss Wales. I must 
speak to you a minute.” 

The girl paused, glanced around as if count- 
ing the chances of escape, and waited. 

“ Aren’t you hurt ? ” Betty demanded as she 
came closer. “ We thought the fall would 
surely stun you. Your hands must be terribly 
cut.” 

“ Oh, not much,” the girl answered, putting 
them resolutely behind her. “ I had on 
gloves. And there was a little snow on the 
ground close to the house, to break the fall. 
You want to know who I am, Miss Wales, and 
what I was doing in the Morton so late. 
Well, it’s all very simple. I’m Helena Mason. 
I was up talking to Esther Bond and we got 


ON THE CAMPUS 293 

interested and didn’t hear either of the bells. 
I hated to bother any one to let me out, so I 
told Esther I’d slide down the fire-escape — it’s 
good practice for a fire. And because it stuck 
for a minute some silly girl imagined I needed 
help and called you. I’m sorry you were dis- 
turbed. The night-watchman will be along 
soon — if I can’t make some girl hear me right 
away and let me in. Won’t you please go 
back now ? ” 

Betty was shivering with cold. “ Yes, and 
you must come with me,” she said. “ You 
limp dreadfully. Waiting out in the cold after 
a fall like that would be positively dangerous. 
The girl who rooms next to me is away, and 
you can go to bed there.” 

“ But I’d much rather go home,” Helena 
demurred. “ I won’t have to wait but a 
minute, and I’m not at all cold.” 

“ You’re shivering this minute,” Betty told 
her, “ and your hands are cut so that they’re 
bleeding on to the ground. You must come 
and let me fix them for you.” And putting 
her arm through Helena’s she hurried her 
back to Morton Hall. 

Helena submitted in silence while Betty 


294 


BETTY WALES 


bathed and bandaged the torn hands, and 
helped her to undress. 

“ Now shall I tell Esther to come and say 
good-night? ” she asked. “ I’m going to tell 
the girl who discovered you that you’re really 
all right — we couldn’t believe our eyes when 
you got up and walked off — and I’ll go on up 
and tell Esther too. She must have seen you 
fall and she’ll be worrying.” 

“ Oh, no, she didn’t,” Helena assured her. 
“ Please don’t disturb her, Miss Wales. I’m 
sure she’s sound asleep. And Miss Wales — 
will you have to tell the other girl — the one 
who saw me — who I am ? I’d so much rather 
not. People will laugh at me so.” 

“ You ought to be thankful they haven’t got 
to mourn for you,” laughed Betty. “ I can’t 
see how you escaped being badly hurt. Well, 
I won’t mention any name then, Miss Mason ; 
only in return you must promise me never to 
go out of our house by such a dangerous route 
again.” 

“ I won’t,” agreed the girl. “ You see I 
didn’t know you or Mrs. Post, and I thought 
you might be awfully cross at my having 
stayed after ten.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 295 

“But Esther knew us,” Betty protested. 
“ She oughtn’t to have let you try such a 
thing in the dark and cold unless there was a 
real necessity for it.” 

“ She had nothing to say about it, Miss 
Wales,” explained Helena coldly. “ I’ve 
often — I’m not a bit afraid of a fire-escape, 
and I just said so and went ahead. She had 
nothing to do with it at all.” 

The Dig was awake and waiting for Betty. 
She listened eagerly to the scant news that 
was vouchsafed her, and pointedly did not 
inquire Helena’s name. 

“ She knows who it was,” Betty guessed 
shrewdly. 

“ Let’s not say anything about it,” she sug- 
gested aloud. “ It might frighten the girls 
about trying the new fire-escapes, and it will 
make this particular girl seem very absurd.” 

“ All right,” agreed the Dig briskly. “ But 
such things always do get out, Miss Wales. 
Other people must have seen her hanging 
there or heard her fall and then the talking 
afterward.” 

Betty crept up to the fourth floor, and 
knocked very softly on Esther Bond’s door. 


BETTY WALES 


296 

Instantly the door was unlocked, and Esther 
demanded nervously what the matter was. 

“ Nothing at all,” Betty quieted her, “ but I 
thought you might know that Helena got car- 
ried down too fast on her fire-escape, so I 
came to tell you that she’s all right, only 
bruised a little and her hands are cut.” 

“ No, I didn’t know she fell,” said Esther 
apathetically, “ but I heard you talking to 
her, and wondered why you had gone out 
after her. I’m glad she’s not hurt.” 

“ Next time you mustn’t let her try such a 
thing,” Betty told her gravely. “ Call me 
and I’ll let out anybody who has stayed too 
late by mistake.” 

“ It wasn’t a mistake, Miss Wales,” Esther 
explained calmly. “ Helena wasn’t ready to 
go at ten, so she stayed ; that’s all. She 
comes here when she likes and goes when she 
likes, and as she likes. If you’re blaming me 
for this you don’t know Helena Mason.” 

Helena insisted upon leaving before break- 
fast the next morning. Her hands were sore, 
and she was stiff and bruised all over, but she 
managed to dress without help, and insisted 
that she was well enough to get her books 


ON THE CAMPUS 297 

and go to her classes. At noon she was back 
again, nervously inquiring for Betty. 

“ I lost a paper last night, Miss Wales,” 
she explained. “ I had tucked it into my 

ulster pocket. Did you pick it up, or has 

anybody in this house found it and brought 
it to you or Mrs. Post? ” 

Betty had not seen the paper, but she prom- 
ised to inquire. The Thorn, it developed, 
had found it that morning and given it to 
Esther Bond. 

“ It was in her writing,” she explained. 
“ It was a Lit. paper, and a dandy one too. I 
read it. Wish Pd seen it before I handed 

mine in.” She grinned cheerfully. “ I can 

say that to you, Miss Wales, because you can 
tell a joke when you see one. Helena Mason 
can’t. Rather than be laughed at for her fire- 
escape escapade she’s given the impression 
that she burned her hands with her student 
lamp. And the people who know what really 
happened are smiling a little and wondering 
a lot.” 

A week later the Thorn came to Betty 
again, her eyes round with amazement. “ I’m 
not a gossip, Miss Wales,” she began, “but 


BETTY WALES 


298 

that paper — the one in Esther Bond’s writing 
that Miss Mason lost and I found — was read 
to-day in Lit. 6, as the best one handed 
in. And it was signed by Helena Mason. I 
wish now that I hadn’t read it. I never 
thought there was any harm in reading a 
theme that you happened to pick up.” 

“There’s a lot of harm in jumping to 
conclusions,” Betty warned her hastily. 
“ Helena’s writing may be so like Esther’s 
that it deceived you, or Esther may have 
copied Helena’s paper for her. That’s the 
right explanation, I’m sure. A good many 
girls hire their papers copied, you know.” 

The Thorn sighed and started at Betty 
admiringly. “ And I never saw any possibil- 
ity except that Helena Mason had hired her 
theme written. I must have a horrid, sus- 
picious mind, I suppose, Miss Wales. I’m 
glad I came right to you first, and I shan’t 
mention the matter to any one else.” 


CHAPTER XVII 


THE MYSTERY SOLVED 

Mrs. Post had the grippe. “ Why couldn't 
I have waited until the spring vacation ? ” 
she sighed forlornly. “ Then this house 
would be empty, and my daughter — the one 
who's a nurse — was coming up anyway to 
visit me. And now I'm bothering everybody 
and making lots of extra trouble." 

Betty reassured her tactfully. “ It's not 
the busy season for Student’s Aid secretaries," 
she said. “ Whatever of your work I specially 
don't like, I shall saddle on some girl. 
They're all crazy to do things for you. It’s 
worth being ill once in a while to see how 
much people think of you." 

Late that afternoon Betty remembered that 
she had forgotten to distribute towels on the 
fourth floor, and went up to see about it. 
The Mystery's door was open, she noticed, and 
a group of fourth floor girls were inside, 
eagerly admiring a dress that had just come 
to the Thorn from home. 

299 


BETTT WALES 


3 °° 

Betty threw them a merry word of greeting 
and went on to the linen closet. It was a 
cloudy afternoon and the tiny high window 
let in very little light. “ I must write to Jim 
to complain of his dark linen-presses,” she 
thought, with a smile. And then, reaching 
out her hand to draw the curtain away from 
some shelves, she jumped back with a scream 
of terror. Her hand had hit the head of 
somebody who was crouched in a heap behind 
the curtains. Betty’s cry brought half a 
dozen girls on the run to the linen-closet door. 

“ It’s nothing,” Betty told them, clinging 
to the door-post to steady herself, for she was 
trembling with fright. “ That is — now, girls, 
don’t scream or faint or do anything foolish. 
Some one had hidden in there — some girl in 
the house, perhaps, for fun. Whoever it is 
won’t hurt us here all together in broad day- 
light. Now come out, please,” called Betty, 
raising her voice and looking hard at the cur- 
tains. 

There was a moment of awful stillness and 
then a tall girl straightened to her full height 
behind the quivering curtains and came for- 
ward, flushing hotly, to the door. It was 


ON THE CAMPUS 


3 QI 


Helena Mason. She paid no attention to 
Betty and the girls about her but, looking 
over their heads, faced Esther Bond, who 
stood watching the scene with a curious air of 
detachment from the door of her room. And 
the look that Helena Mason gave her said as 
plainly as words could have done, “ I hate 
you. I hate you. I hate you.” 

But the look the Mystery sent back said, 
“ I am beyond hating you or any one else.” 

There was a long silence. Betty and the 
girls with her were too amazed to speak, and 
Helena Mason stood quietly defiant, as if dar- 
ing any one to question her. At last the 
Thorn, gay in her new dress, broke the ten- 
sion. 

“ Come on down to my room, girls, and 
finish your inspection of me there,” she sug- 
gested. “ Miss Wales doesn’t need any more 
protection. We’re just in the way here now.” 

They caught her point instantly, and 
trooped after her down-stairs, leaving Betty, 
Helena, and the Mystery to settle the matter 
as best they might. When they had gone 
Helena laughed a strained little laugh and 
began to explain herself. 


3°2 


BETTT WALES 


“ You’re always catching me in absurd 
situations, Miss Wales. But this can be ex- 
plained as easily as the fire-escape affair. I’m 
sure you know I wasn’t trying to steal your 
sheets and towels. I had a reason for not 
wanting the girls in the house to know 
I was in Esther’s room to-day, so when I 
came up-stairs and found some of them with 
her, I slipped in here to wait till they’d gone; 
and you came and found me. That’s all.” 

Betty had been thinking fast. “ But the 
door was locked, Miss Mason — it is kept 
locked. How did you manage to get in and 
then lock it again ? ” 

Helena flushed. “ The key to any of these 
doors will unlock any other, Miss Wales.” 

“ But where did you get such a key ? ” 
Betty persisted. “ How did you happen to 
have one ready to-day ? ” 

“ I took it out of one of the doors over 
there.” Helena pointed vaguely toward a 
cluster of empty rooms. 

“ Where is it now? ” Betty demanded. 

Helena flushed redder than ever. “ I’m 
sure I don’t know — on the floor in there, prob- 
ably.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 303 

Betty got a match and began groping 
around on the floor of the linen room. But 
after a minute Esther Bond, who had said 
nothing so far, came forward and confronted 
Helena. 

“ Why don't you tell the truth at once ? ” 
she asked. “ You’ll have to in the end. 
Don’t hunt there, Miss Wales. She’s wearing 
the key on her watch-chain.” 

“ Give it to me, please,” Betty said, coming 
out into the light. She noticed that Helena 
took her watch off the chain first, and then 
slipped out the key. “ So you didn’t take it 
to-day,” she said. 

“ I never said when I took it,” Helena 
flashed back angrily. “ I’ve had it several 
weeks, if you want to know. The girls in 
this house are bores and frightfully curious. 
Whenever I don’t want to see them and have 
them fussing around, why, I come in here 
and wait till Esther is alone. There’s no 
great harm in that, as far as I can see. I’ve 
done it all winter.” 

Betty was frankly puzzled what to answer. 
“ Why, no — except that you gave me a dread- 
ful fright just now,” she said slowly. “ And 


BETTY WALES 


3°4 

— yes, Miss Mason, there is harm in it. It’s a 
sly and sneaking way of acting. No girl 
would hide in here as you say you have done 
without a good reason, and the reason can’t 
but be discreditable. I don’t ask you to tell 
me what it is, but I do ask you and Esther to 
talk it over and think what you ought to do 
about it. And if you want any advice from 
me or Mrs. Post, when she’s better, or want to 
tell us anything in justice to yourselves or the 
house, why, we shall be only too glad to 
help.” 

Betty gathered up her towels and departed, 
hoping she had said the right thing and 
devoutly wishing, as she caught a glimpse of 
herself in a mirror, that she looked older and 
more impressive, the better to emphasize her 
good advice. Half-way down the stairs she 
halted. “ Why, she’s the ghost ! ” she said 
to herself. “ I’ve caught our ghost ! How 
queer that I never thought of that till now. 
And I’m afraid that in this case the Thorn is 
right about the connection between ghosts and 
somebody’s wrong-doing. Either Helena Ma- 
son is crazy, or she’s hiding something that 
she’s ashamed of. I wish Esther would tell 


ON THE CAMPUS 305 

Mrs. Post all about it. It’s so queer that it 
worries me.” 

A few minutes later there was a knock on 
Betty’s door. The Mystery, a strained, fright- 
ened look in her big eyes, stood outside. 

“ I’ve come to explain myself,” she said. 
“ You’ve been very kind, and Mrs. Post — I 
couldn’t bear to have her know this, Miss 
Wales. But I owe it to you that you should 
understand, and then I want you to advise 
me. Helena wouldn’t come. She has de- 
cided what to do, she says — she will leave 
college at the spring recess. I am as bad as 
she in a way, and perhaps I ought to leave 
too. Indeed, I may have to.” 

“ Begin at the beginning and tell me about 
it,” urged Betty. 

The Mystery nodded. “ It began when we 
were little girls. She and her mother used to 
spend the summers in our village. Her 
mother took a fancy to me. She used to tell 
us that if Helena had my brains or I Helena’s 
face she should have an ideal daughter. She’s 
very ambitious. She was always pushing 
Helena along in her schools — bringing down 
tutors in the summer to teach her languages 


BETTY WALES 


3°6 

and coach her in her theme-work. She let 
me study with them, too, because she thought 
my work would inspire Helena. Helena 
hates to study, and hasn’t much head for it. 
Her mother had set her heart on her coming 
to Harding and making a name for herself 
here. When she heard that I wanted dread- 
fully to come, she sent for me and offered to 
pay my expenses if I would help Helena, es- 
pecially in theme-work. 

“ I never thought how it would be — it 
sounded all right — like tutoring. So I 
promised. Helena insisted that I should 
live off at the end of nowhere, so she could 
come to me without any one’s finding it out. 
I soon saw what she wanted of me — not tu- 
toring, but help. I was to write all her pa- 
pers, take all her notes and read them to 
her, — do all her work and see that she got the 
credit. At the end of last year I got tired of 
it, and I thought I could pay my own way. 
But when I spoke to Helena she said she 
would tell the whole story, and that it would 
look as black for me as for her. 4 Only I 
shall go home where no one knows or cares/ 
she said, ‘ except mother, who can’t defend her 


ON THE CAMPUS 


3°7 


plan, and you will stay here — or you’ll stop 
and teach and never get a decent position, be- 
cause they won’t recommend a cheat.’ So 
I’ve kept on. When you asked me to come 
and live here Helena was furious. She said 
she couldn’t come to see me here without be- 
ing seen — of course things have leaked out, 
and she’s been suspected of getting help, but 
nothing has ever been proved. I wouldn’t 
give in — I wanted so to come. 

“ But I did arrange to have a room away 
from the others, and I’ve kept the door locked 
so they wouldn’t come in suddenly and find 
her here or see a paper I’d written for her to 
hand in. She gets stupider and lazier all the 
time, I think. She can’t do the simplest 
thing for herself now. She had an absurd 
story ready to explain all this. I told her I 
wouldn’t help her with it. I’m sick of being 
the brains of Helena Mason. I want to be 
myself — to have the use of my own ideas and 
abilities. I’m tired of selling my brains and 
my self-respect for a college education that 
other girls earn easily with their hands. It 
wasn’t a fair bargain. Of course I shall pay 
back the money as soon as I can. But 


BETTY WALES 


3°8 

whether I go or stay, I shall be free from 
now on to be myself — not a nonentity sucked 
dry to help a rich girl get into Dramatic Club 
and Philosophical and the Cercle Fran§ais, 
and to make a reputation for the brains her 
mother admires. Now you understand me, 
Miss Wales. Tell me what to do.” 

Betty hesitated. “ I’m not sure that I do 
understand. You mean that you’ve actually 
written all Helena Mason’s papers?” 

Esther nodded. “ Ready for her to copy. 
At first I only corrected hers, but for nearly 
two years I’ve written them outright. And 
I’ve studied nearly every lesson for her — 
taken all the notes for us both, and recited as 
little as possible myself, so the resemblances 
in our work shouldn’t be noticed. Now I 
shall come forward and take part in things. 
Oh, it will be splendid, Miss Wales ! ” She 
paused uncertainly. “ But perhaps you think 
I’ve been too dishonest to deserve a loan from 
the Student’s Aid, or any chance of earning 
money. If I’d only known, before I came, 
that there were plenty of chances ! I didn’t 
realize it even after I came, when Helena first 
proposed my doing the things that seemed to 


ON THE CAMPUS 309 

me unfair. I -did them because I hated to 
quarrel with her — and after I’d done them 
she held them over me. She’s not as mean 
as she seems, Miss Wales. Her mother has 
brought her up to feel that appearances are 
the only thing that count.” 

The cloak of diffidence and reserve had 
fallen away from the girl. She could speak 
for herself and for her friend in eloquent de- 
fense. Betty watched and listened, amazed 
at the sudden change in her. She was free at 
last to be herself. 

“ No,” Betty said at last, “ I don’t think 
you have forfeited your chance. Mrs. Mason 
was most to blame, in suggesting the plan and 
not then seeing that her daughter did her 
own work. Helena shall have another chance 
too, if I can arrange it for her and she will 
take it ; but it will probably mean explaining 
to her teachers how her work has been done 
so far. With you ” — Betty considered — “ 1 
don’t see why you shouldn’t let them explain 
the change in you to suit themselves. You’ll 
be a great mystery to them ” — Betty smiled at 
her. “ We’ve called you that — the Mystery — 
Mrs. Post and I, when we’ve talked about you. 


3 IQ 


BETTY WALES 


I’m glad our Mystery is solved at last. You 
haven’t seemed quite real to me up in your 
lonely tower room.” 

“ Haunted by ghosts,” added Esther, with 
a sad smile. “ I know what the girls have 
thought, you see. I couldn’t say anything. 
Now I suppose there’ll be more stories, es- 
pecially if Helena leaves college.” 

But the Thorn had arranged that. “ I’ve 
told the girls that loyalty to you means 
silence, Miss Wales,” she explained to Betty. 
“ I proved to them how dangerous it is to 
guess about queer things like that, and 
they’ve all promised not to say a word about 
anything they saw. Of course ” — the Thorn 
couldn’t resist so fine a chance to plume her- 
self on her superiority — “ finding that paper 
and the fire-escape business and Miss Mason’s 
story about it can’t help giving me some very 
interesting suspicions, but they shall never 
pass my lips.” 

Next Betty went to see Helena, prepared to 
offer to help her through her crisis ; but 
Helena had made her plans and was deter- 
mined to abide by them. • 

“ I couldn’t stay on, Miss Wales,” she said, 


ON THE CAMPUS 311 

“ and I certainly don't want to. I've had a 
good time here, laughing in my sleeve at the 
people I've taken in with my clever stories, 
and pretty verses — why, the one to Agatha 
Dwight actually made a splash that rippled 
away down to New York. The funny thing 
about it is that the stories and all are like me. 
Mother attracts fascinating, out-of-the-way 
people, and we've always lived among them 
in an atmosphere of unusual, fascinating hap- 
penings. How in the world that little 
country girl gets hold of it is a mystery to 
me. She's never seen such people, or been 
to their dinners or behind the scenes at their 
plays. I've never even told her much." 

“ That's the mystery of genius," said Betty, 
who had thought a great deal about Esther 
Bond. “ You never can explain it." 

“ And if you haven’t got it," said Helena 
hopelessly, “ you can't get it. I’m not un- 
usual. I shall never shine except in moth- 
er’s reflected glory. I’m sorry for mother; 
she's wasted so much time and money 
trying to make me seem clever. Now she's 
got to get used to having a perfectly com- 
monplace daughter. I shall do my best 


3 12 


BETTY WALES 


to make her like the real me, but at any rate 
she’ll have to endure me as I am. I shan’t 
permit any more efforts at veneering me. 
They’re too demoralizing.” 

So Helena departed at Easter, amid the 
laments of her class. She would have been 
editor-in-chief of the “ Argus ” and Ivy Ora- 
tor if she had stayed, they told her. 

“ I’ve willed my honors to the undiscovered 
geniuses,” she retorted daringly. “ I’m tired 
of being called the cleverest girl in the class. 
I’m going home to give the rest of you a 
chance. College never exactly suited my 
style.” 

Heartless, mocking, careless of what she 
had stolen, even unconscious of what she was 
restoring to the girl in the tower room, 
Helena left Harding, and no more ghosts dis- 
turbed the peace of Morton Hall. 

One day just before the winter term closed, 
Eugenia stopped in to see Betty on her way 
home from Miss Dick’s. 

“ Something’s the matter with Dorothy,” 
she said. “ I came back early, so you would 
have time to run over and see her before she 
goes to bed. She seems to be dreadfully dis- 


ON THE CAMPUS 313 

turbed about something and homesick and 
unhappy. She kept saying that nothing was 
the matter, but the tears would come creeping 
out. I don’t think she’s sick — -just un- 
happy.” 

“ I’ll ask Miss Dick to let her come and 
stay with me to-night,” Betty suggested, slip- 
ping on an ulster. 

Dorothy flew into her big sister’s arms, and 
fairly danced for joy when she was told that 
Betty had come to take her home. 

“ Have things been going criss-cross with 
you lately ? ” Betty asked her, as they ran 
back, hand in hand, to Morton Hall. 

“ Yes,” whispered Dorothy solemnly, “ they 
have. Do you happen to feel like a reckless 
ritherum to-night, Betty dear ? ” 

“ Not especially to-night,” laughed Betty. 
“ Do you?” 

The Smallest Sister sighed profoundly. 
“ Yes. I guess I shan’t ever stop feeling so as 
long as I live.” 

“ Not even if we should make hot choco- 
late in a chafing-dish ? ” 

“ That would be splendid,” Dorothy ad- 
mitted eagerly, “ but, Betty dear, it wouldn’t 


BETTY WALES 


3H 

make you feel the same about a person who’d 
pretended to be very fond of you and all the 
same she did a mean hateful thing, would it 
now ? ” 

Betty admitted that hot chocolate might 
not be able to wipe out all the sting of false 
friendship. “ But maybe the person didn’t 
mean to be mean,” she suggested hopefully. 

Dorothy’s little face was very sober. “ I’m 
sure she didn’t know how sad it would seem 
to me,” she explained. “ Betty, let’s play I 
was mistaken, and enjoy our hot chocolate as 
much as ever we can.” 

But when it came time to put out the light, 
Dorothy pleaded that it should be left burn- 
ing “ just a teeny, weeny speck, like a night- 
lamp.” 

“ What’s the matter, Dottie?” objected 
Betty. “ Have you been seeing ghosts 
again ? ” 

“ Whatever made you think of that?” 
asked Dorothy anxiously. “ I never said a 
single word about ghosts. Besides, I couldn’t 
see her again, because I didn’t see her be- 
fore — I only heard her.” 

“ Well, you won’t see or hear any ghosts 


ON THE CAMPUS 315 

here,” Betty assured her, turning out the 
light. “ When I’m around they all vanish, 
and real people come in their places. So you 
can go to sleep this minute, and sleep as 
sound as ever you can.” 

An hour or two later Betty, who had given 
her bed to Dorothy, and was curled up on the 
box-couch, was awakened by the shrill sound 
of a little voice pleading piteously. It was 
Dorothy, fast asleep but sitting bolt upright 
in bed and talking in a strained, perfectly in- 
telligible monotone. 

“Oh, please don’t, Frisky, please don’t!” 
she moaned. “I want to scream so, and I 
know I mustn’t. You look terrible in that 
white dress. Take down your hands, please, 
Frisky, please ! I know it’s you, so why do 
you go on pretending ? I never meant to tell 
Betty about your having the candle-shade. 
You said you’d forgive me. But you said you 
forgave Shirley, and then you frightened her 
so that she’ll never get over it. Oh, I mustn’t 
scream or the} 7 ’’!! find you out ! Please, please 
go away, Frisky, and don’t try to frighten me 
any more.” 

The tears were streaming down the Small- 


BETTY WALES 


3 l6 

est Sister’s face, and she seemed to be in mor- 
tal terror. Betty went to her and shook her 
softly awake, soothing her with pet names 
and caresses. And then, between sobs, the 
whole story came out. 

“ Oh, Betty, you must never, never tell, but 
Frisky was the ghost ! I made her mad at 
me because I said she oughtn’t to have taken 
a candle-shade from the Tally-ho the night 
you asked us two to dinner. I saw it in her 
drawer the other day, and I said she ought to 
give it right back. And then she told me I 
was a meddlesome little thing. But when I 
most cried she said she’d make up and for- 
give me. But last night when my two room- 
mates were away, there was a knocking near 
the chimney and a moan, and a ghost came 
right out of the wall, just as Shirley said, 
with its hands up to its face, and it was 
Frisky in a white sheet.” 

“ Well, then you needn’t have been scared 
any more,” said Betty soothingly. 

“A person in a white sheet is rather scar- 
ing,” declared Dorothy, “ especially if you’re 
awfully scared to begin with. She glided 
around and around, and she wouldn’t speak 


ON THE CAMPUS 31 7 

to me when I whispered to her that I knew 
her. So then I shivered and shook till morn- 
ing. She might have scared me just as she 
did Shirley — she couldn’t tell. Shirley will 
stutter and her eyes will twitch always, the 
doctor says. But Frisky called me her funny 
little chum to-day, and just laughed when I 
accused her of being the ghost. And I can’t 
quarrel without telling why, and if I tell, 
something perfectly dreadful will happen to 
Frisky.” 

“ She well deserves it for frightening and 
tyrannizing over you little girls,” said Betty 
severely. 

“ Oh, Betty, you mustn’t tell ! You prom- 
ised not to. Only always let me come and 
stay with you when my roommates are 
away.” 

“ You certainly shall,” Betty promised, 
“and do hurry and get ready for college, 
Dottie. Boarding-school girls are such com- 
plete sillies 1 ” 


CHAPTER XVIII 


frisky fenton’s folly 

Mr. Thayer’s May party was to be a Doll 
Festival. Georgia had thought of it, and she 
and Fluffy Dutton had made sure that the 
college was “ properly excited ” over its “ fea- 
tures.” 

“ No use taking the darling dolls home,” 
Georgia declared. “ The new climate wouldn’t 
agree with them. No use packing them away 
in messy boxes, with books and pillows and 
pictures. By next fall the doll fever will be 
over. 

“ There can be doll dances in costume, and a 
doll play, if Madeline isn’t too famous to 
write one. The May-pole dancers can be 
dressed like dolls too.” 

Fluffy sighed and interrupted : “ Shan’t 
you mind at all parting with Wooden ? ” 

“ Not a bit,” returned Georgia, the matter- 
of-fact. “ Let’s get a paper ready for the 
girls to sign, with the number of dolls they 
can furnish opposite their names.” 

318 


ON THE CAMPUS 319 

Straight signed for one doll without a mur- 
mur of protest, but it was not Rosa Marie 
that she put on the pile in Georgia’s borrowed 
express cart on the day of the May party. 
Not even to her beloved Fluffy did she con- 
fide her intention of never, never parting from 
her dear Rosa Marie. 

The party was on the factory lawn, and the 
college part of it overflowed hungrily into the 
Tally-ho’s territory, or climbed up to view the 
animated scene comfortably from the Peter 
Pan’s upper stories. The doll dances and 
May dances came first, and then everybody 
gathered around the pile of dolls that rose 
like a haystack on the slope of the hill, while 
Babbie led the little girls one by one, begin- 
ning with the smallest and most forlorn and 
ragged, up to the pile to choose a doll. 
Georgia strutted like a peacock because 
Wooden was the very first one selected, and 
Fluffy refused to be comforted when the fat 
little Polander who had chosen her Esqui- 
maux promptly sat down on it and cracked 
its skull. 

“ Never mind, dearie,” Straight consoled 
her. “ Having dolls to smash is part of the 


BETTY WALES 


3 2 ° 

fun of having them at all. Mr. Thayer will 
glue it together, and that child will never 
think about the crack.” 

“ It's queer,” gulped Fluffy, “ how fond you 
get of everything you have up here at college 
— your friends and your room, and even your 
footless little toys.” 

“ Because they’re the very last toys we’ll 
ever, ever have,” said Straight soberly. 
“ Why didn’t you keep the Esquimaux, if you 
cared so much ? ” 

“ Because I kept the Baby and its nurse,” 
explained Fluffy shamefacedly. Whereupon 
Straight confessed to having bought a substi- 
tute for Rosa Marie, and the twins departed 
to the Tally-ho to celebrate their perfect har- 
mony of spirit in cooling glasses of lemonade. 

Betty was catering for the party, acting as 
special reception committee for all the shy 
and friendless factory hands, and finding time 
between to consult flitting members of the 
“ Proper Excitement ” and “ Proper Encour- 
agement ” committees. Money-making sum- 
mers must be arranged for some of the Mor- 
ton Hall girls, and positions assured for many 
needy seniors. Betty had started a Plarding 


ON THE CAMPUS 


3 21 


teacher’s agency, and already the demands 
upon it were almost greater than the supply. 

“ But I don’t intend they shall teach unless 
they really want to,” Betty decreed, “ and 
not unless they’re at least a little fitted to. 
Teaching isn’t the only way for earning 
money — look at the Tally-ho. Mr. Morton 
wants a private secretary if I can honestly 
recommend one. He’s been telling his friends 
about my ideas of fitting people to positions, 
and I got the funniest letter from one of them 
— a very distinguished author. She said the 
woman question would soon be settled if I 
kept on insisting that a woman’s work should 
be her true vocation. Best of all, she wants a 
manager for a lace shop she is interested in, 
and a chaperon for her two daughters who are 
to study art in Paris next winter. Those are 
two splendid openings.” 

“ There are a lot of dolls left,” Babbie an- 
nounced, having finished her distribution. 
“ I think Bob would like them sent to New 
York for her floating hospitals and play- 
grounds. Where shall we put them ? I’m 
afraid it’s going to rain.” 

“ In the Tally-ho workroom,” Betty de- 


3 22 


BETTY WALES 


cided rapidly. “It does look like rain. 
Then we’d better have the ice-cream and cakes 
in the club-house. Where’s Nora? Babbie, 
could you ask Mr. Thayer to tell them all to 
go to the club-house? Why will it always 
pour on garden parties ? ” 

She had just found Nora, sent her to give 
new orders to the men who were carrying the 
ice-cream, made sure that Bridget had taken 
all the cakes over, and started across the lawn 
herself, when the storm broke — a pelting 
spring shower that sent her scurrying back to 
the deserted Tally-ho in search of an umbrella 
and rubbers. Before she had found them, a 
forlorn, dripping little figure fell upon her. 

“ Oh, Betty dear,” cried the Smallest Sister, 
“ I went to the party to find you — Mr. Thayer 
asked me to come, but I only went to find 
you. . And I didn’t like to climb the fence, as 
long as it was a party, so I came all the way 
around, and I’m soaked. Betty, something 
awful has happened. Frisky has run away.” 

Betty stared in dismay. “ Dorothy, I 
haven’t a minute to spare now. Take 
Emily’s umbrella and hurry home and get 
off those wet things. I’ll come to see you to- 


ON THE CAMPUS 


3 2 3 

night, but I can’t possibly stop now — nothing 
will go right if I’m not there.” 

“ About the ice-cream, you mean ? ” de- 
manded Dorothy. “ To-night will be too late 
to do anything about Frisky.” 

“ But, dearie,” Betty told her, “ I can’t do 
anything about Frisky. If she’s run away 
from Miss Dick’s school, why, Miss Dick is 
the one to attend to it.” 

“ Miss Dick doesn’t know.” 

“ Then why not tell her instead of me? ” 

“ Because,” said Dorothy simply, “you 
always know what to do. Miss Dick and 
Kittie Carson wouldn’t know. They’d never 
find her and never get her to come back. 
Isn’t it very awful indeed to run away and be 
an actress, Betty ? ” 

Betty laid down her umbrella, wrapped her 
coat around Dorothy, and with one anxious 
glance in the direction of the supper that she 
was relentlessly abandoning bent her energies 
to settling her responsibilities toward Frisky 
Fenton. 

“ Does any one else know where Frisky has 
gone ? ” she asked. 

“ I think maybe her roommates do. She 


BETTY WALES 


3 2 4 

came and told me this morning, and gave me 
a blue ribbon for a keepsake. She said she 
couldn't bear to go without any good-byes to 
her chums. She said, ‘ Don't tell any one/ 
but of course she didn't mean you. She 

knows I tell you everything since ” 

“ And where has she gone ? " 

“ To the Junction, to join that company 
that was acting here all last week. They're 
going 'way out west after to-night. That’s 
why you must hurry." 

“ Why on earth did she do that, Dottie? " 

“ 'Cause her stepmother was so unsympa- 
thetic," explained Dorothy, “ at Easter vaca- 
tion, you know, about a new hat, and a party, 
and going to see Miss Dwight in Miss Made- 
line’s play. And yesterday Miss Dick scolded 
her and kept her in to write French verbs. 
So she just decided to go off and be an actress." 

“ And why do you think I can get her to 
come back ? " 

“ 'Cause she said once she'd love to have a 
sympathetic sister like you. You understand 
exactly how girls feel." 

Betty sighed. 

“ Besides," Dorothy went on, “ you know an 


ON THE CAMPUS 325 

actress. Frisky knows three — Miss Dwight 
and the ones that are the hero and heroine in 
this company. She went to a play they acted 
here one afternoon called 4 East Lynne/ and 
she waited outside by the back door and met 
them, and they encouraged her.” 

“ But, Dorothy, I thought you weren’t in- 
timate with Frisky any more since you found 
out she was the ghost.” 

“ We never stopped being chums,” said 
Dorothy, bursting into a sudden flood of 
tears. “ I’m sure she’ll be sick of being 
by herself by to-night, and scared, and I al- 
most think she’d expect me to send you after 
her.” 

Betty looked at her watch. It was nearly 
six. The next train to the Junction would be 
the theatre express. “ All right, little sister, 
I’ll go,” she said cheerfully. “ Only I can’t 
take the whole responsibility. You must let 
me send a note to Miss Dick.” 

So Betty wrote Miss Dick that Francisca 
Fenton had gone to the Junction alone on a 
foolish errand, that she was going after her on 
the theatre train, and that if Miss Dick wished 
to come too they could go together. “ But 


BETTY WALES 


326 

I’m quite sure I can manage alone,” she added, 
“ and perhaps she would feel less humiliated 
at having me find her.” 

And as Miss Dick didn’t appear at the 
train, it was to be presumed that she shared 
the general faith in Betty Wales. 

As she sped to the station Betty noted the 
name of the company — “ Pratt Players ” — on 
a dilapidated bill-board, and on the train she 
planned out her campaign. She would drive 
to the place where they were playing, and if 
Frisky was there or they knew where she 
was, all would be plain sailing. If not, the 
police and private detectives must be put 
to work, under pledges of secrecy. She 
couldn’t see that Miss Dick would be needed, 
no matter which way things went. 

But she had no sooner arrived at the Junc- 
tion than her plans were suddenly thrown all 
awry. None of the station officials, none of 
the cabmen at the corner, knew anything 
about the Pratt Players. 

“ ‘ The Pink Moon ’ at the Lyric, Shake- 
speare at the Grand, and I’m not sure about 
the Paxton,” the man at the information 
bureau told her glibly. 



“wE’Uv find 


’em, miss,” 


he ASSURED HER 















ON THE CAMPUS 327 

A cabman remembered that the Paxton 
was closed. “ But * The Pink Moon ’ is a 
great show, ma’am,” he assured Betty. 
“ Drive you there for fifty cents.” 

Betty sped back to the information bureau. 
“ Pratt Players ? ” repeated the man inside. 
“ Pratt Players ? Some ten-twenty-thirty out- 
fit, I s’pose, doing a week at some little 
nickel theatre or music hall. City’s full of 
them, miss. — Next train to Boston leaves in 
twenty minutes. — Lunch-room down-stairs, 
ma’am. — Where in South Dakota did you say 
you want to go ? ” 

Betty turned away sick at heart. She had 
a vision of herself being driven aimlessly from 
one nickel theatre to another, in a vain search 

for the Pratt Players, while Frisky If 

only Miss Dick were here ! She might tele- 
graph for her. But first she pocketed pride 
and discretion and consulted the friendly cab- 
man again. He had never heard of the Pratt 
Players. “ But we’ll find ’em, miss,” he as- 
sured her, “ if it takes all night. Got a friend 
in the company, miss ? ” 

Betty turned away with much dignity 
toward the telegraph office. On the way she 


BETTY WALES 


328 

tried to think what 19 — girls had lived at the 
Junction. If only she could remember one 
she knew well enough to take with her on 
her quixotic search ! There was a sudden 
press of people coming in from a newly ar- 
rived train. Betty stood aside forlornly to 
let them pass, when she felt her hand caught 
in a strong clasp and looked up to find Jim 
Watson towering over her. 

“ By all the luck ! ” he cried. “ You here 
and alone ! Come on to the theatre with me, 
Betty. Faculty don’t have to be chaperoned, 
even if accompanied by a dimple, do they ? 
I was hoping to get up to Harding in 
time to call on you — got to be in Albany to- 
morrow on business for the firm. I say, 
Betty, how long is it since I’ve seen you ? ” 

Betty didn’t wait to answer. “ Come,” she 
ordered desperately, “ and find a cab and help 
me hunt for the Pratt Players. I’ll explain 
after we’re started. I don’t know when I’ve 
been so glad to see somebody I know, Jim.” 

“ Look sharp now,” Jim told the cabman. 
“ Extra fare if you hit the right place early 
in the game, understand.” Owing to which 
inducement cabby wasted but two guesses and 


ON THE CAMPUS 


329 


halted with a flourish in front of the dingy 
theatre occupied by the Pratt Players before 
the first curtain had risen on the faded splen- 
dors of “ East Lynne.” 

Jim ordered the cab to wait, tipped a ticket- 
seller and a messenger boy to ascertain the 
name and whereabouts of the heroine, who 
presumably had Frisky in charge, escorted 
Betty down a dark alley to the stage-door, 
cautioned her to call if anything went wrong, 
and leaned comfortably against a post to 
await her return from the inner regions. 

They had agreed that it would be better for 
Betty to go in alone ; but she wished, as she 
opened the door and groped her way up a 
steep, narrow flight of stairs, that she had still 
the protection of Jim’s unruffled, confident 
presence. She met two men on the stairs. 
One took no notice of her, the other tossed a 
“ Late again, eh ? You’ll be docked,” over 
his shoulder, and hurried on. At the top of 
the flight Betty halted aimlessly. Stage 
hands were busy moving battered scenery. 
A woman’s querulous voice clamored impa- 
tiently for “ Daisy ! ” Then above everything 
rose a man’s angry remonstrance. 


33 ° 


BETTY WALES 


“ Promised you nothing ! You said you 
could dance, and you can’t. If you could, 
you’re good for a front row job, with that 
face. Oh, well,” in answer to a low-voiced 
reminder, “ I never thought you meant it. 
That was my little jolly. Don’t you know 
jolly when you see it, little girl? Where’ll 
you stay to-night? Lost all your money? 
Well, I’m losing more’n I ever had over this 
old show. It ain’t my fault that you got lost 
this afternoon along with your pocketbook, 
and didn’t get here till it was show-time. 
Anyway I haven’t a thing for you at any 
hour of the day. If I was you I’d go right 
home to my mamma. Here’s two plunks — 
that’s all I can spare. So long, little girl.” 

Betty stepped forward toward the voice just 
in time to be run down by a frightened, tear- 
stained Frisky, clutching two silver dollars 
tight in her hand. 

“ Miss Wales ! ” she gasped. “ Where did 
you come from ? ” 

“ I’ve got a carriage outside to take you 
home in,” Betty told her quietly. “ So you 
won’t need that money. Let’s give it back 
and then go.” 


ON THE CAMPUS 


33i 


At that the manager appeared, looking a 
little frightened, and protesting stoutly that 
he “ hadn’t never promised the kid a part.” 
And when Betty didn’t offer to dispute him, 
he seemed much relieved and grew obsequious 
and effusive, so that Betty was glad to re- 
member that Jim was outside. When they 
finally got out to him, past the bowing, minc- 
ing manager, Jim tactfully fell into the rear 
of the procession, and rode back on the box 
with the driver, so that Frisky, who was hys- 
terical with humiliation and relief, might 
have Betty all to herself. 

Her story was just as Dorothy had told it. 
After getting to the Junction she had experi- 
enced the same difficulty that Betty had in 
finding the elusive Pratt Players ; but not 
having thought of a cab, and being without 
Jim’s effective methods of memory-jogging, 
she had walked all the afternoon, losing her 
pocketbook in the course of her wanderings, 
only to be told by one of her “ encouraging ” 
actor friends that he had only suggested her 
joining the company as a bit of harmless, 
pleasant “jolly.” 

“ I’d saved three months’ allowance, and 


33 2 


BETTT WALES 


sold my turquoise ring to Josephine Briggs 
for three dollars,” sighed Frisky. “ What 
will Miss Dick say, Miss Wales, and what 
will she write home to my father?” 

At the station Jim appeared with tickets 
and the cheering information that the next 
train wouldn’t go for half an hour. So 
Frisky, who had had a banana for lunch and 
no dinner, was persuaded to gulp down a 
sandwich and a glass of milk, while Betty 
thanked Jim so fervently that he took heart 
and boldly inquired when he might come to 
Harding to make the call he had missed in 
the pursuit of Frisky. 

On the train Frisky considered her future 
and dissolved in floods of woe. 

“ I couldn’t stay without my money,” she 
wailed, “ but I simply cannot go back and 
face the awful scoldings I shall get. Miss 
Dick won’t let me out of the school yard for 
the rest of the term, and I shouldn’t wonder 
if she’d tell the whole story right out in 
chapel. If I hadn’t been made to stay by 
myself so much and think, I shouldn’t have 
thought of so many wrong things to do. I 
discovered the secret passage one day when I 


ON THE CAMPUS 


333 


was sent to my room to meditate. Who could 
resist trying to be a ghost, Miss Wales, with 
that secret passage all fixed up as if on pur- 
pose? I’ve felt awfully about Shirley ” 

“ And yet you did it again,” said Betty 
sternly, “ to Dorothy, who might have been 
just as badly frightened.” 

Frisky wept afresh. “ I know it. She 
made me cross, and I didn’t care. Sometimes 
I don’t care what happens, Miss Wales, and 
other days I love everybody, even Miss Dick 
and my stepmother. The worst thing is that 
nobody trusts me. I meant to show them 
that I could be trusted to get along all right 
alone. And then I — I — I — lost my purse,” 
sobbed Frisky wildly. 

Betty patted her shoulder comfortingly. 
“ That plan was all wrong,” she said. “ Sup- 
pose you were to come and consult me about 
things the way Dorothy does ? I believe we 
could get to be good friends. I know a good 
many stage people,” she added craftily, “ the 
real kind, not the make-believes like those 
dreadful ones in the Pratt Company.” 

“ But if ever I wanted to go on the stage 
you’d say no, Miss Wales,” demurred Frisky. 


334 


BETTY WALES 


“ I should say that Miss Dwight knows 
more about it than either of us,” amended 
Betty. “ We are almost at Harding, Frisky. 
Shall I tell Miss Dick to-morrow that I’m to 
be your special consultation committee from 
now on, and that I’m willing to be responsi- 
ble for your good behavior ? ” 

“ Responsible for my good behavior ?” 
Frisky giggled, with a touch of her old irre- 
sponsible gaiety. “ But I’m always in hot 
water, Miss Wales. I try sometimes, and some- 
times I don’t, but it always ends the same way.” 

“ So you’re not to be trusted, then,” began 
Betty. “ I thought you said ” 

“ Oh ! ” Frisky considered it. “ If I said 
I’d try all the time, and Miss Dick promised 
to overlook some little mistakes, and I should 
talk things over with you instead of with the 
other girls — I think sometimes they stir me 
up on purpose to see the rumpus there will 
be. Well, then you’d beg me off with Miss 
Dick. Is that it?” 

“ I’d explain to Miss Dick. I’d ask her 
to treat you as she does the oldest and most 
responsible girls — to trust you.” 

“ She treats them all a good deal like in- 


ON THE CAMPUS 335 

fants,” murmured Frisky. She turned to 
Betty. “ Thank you, Miss Wales. I don’t 
know why you should do so much for me. 
If you are looking out for my good behavior, 
I’ll certainly try not to make you sorry or to 
get you in a fix with Miss Dick.” Frisky 
laughed again. 

Betty took the sleepy Francisca home with 
her, and risked routing somebody up at Miss 
Dick’s to make her report. Miss Dick herself 
answered her. “ I found your note on my re- 
turn,” she explained. “ One of Miss Fenton’s 
roommates had grown worried and spoken 
to me earlier in the day. Miss Carson and I 
went down in the afternoon. No, we were 
not provided with the company’s name, and 
we could not place them. Miss Carson is 
staying all night — the detective reports to 
her hourly. I shall wire her at once, of 
course. Miss Wales, you have done me an 
inestimable service in helping me to fulfil 
my trust to the child’s parents. In the 
morning you will come over ? Certainly, 
Miss Wales. Anything, anything! I am 
very deeply in your debt.” 

Betty smiled, a little later, over the picture 


336 BETTY WALES 

of the dignified Miss Dick, the subdued 
Kitty Carson, and a perturbed detective pur- 
suing a phantom theatrical troupe and a 
pretty girl through the devious ways of the 
Junction. 

“ But I didn’t find them,” she reflected 
modestly. “ It was Jim. I’m never the one 
that does things. It’s just my good luck and 
my good friends.” 


CHAPTER XIX 

ARCHITECT’S FINAL PLANS CONSIDERED 

Betty Wales danced merrily across the 
campus to her office. It was commence- 
ment Monday. Betty hadn’t meant to stay 
over at first, but the affairs of the teachers’ 
agency were not quite settled, and they had 
kept her. Besides, Lucile Merrifield gradu- 
ated, Georgia was a junior usher, Helen was to 
take her Master’s degree, and 19 — was coming 
back “ in bunches,” as Bob elegantly phrased 
it, for an “ informal between-years ” reunion. 
And finally Jim Watson was coming to make 
his much-heralded call on this very Monday 
evening. Betty had taken him to 19 — ’s own 
Glee Club concert, and he had suggested cele- 
brating the anniversary, much to the disgust 
of the B. C. A.’s and the rest of the old 19 — 
crowd, who found no occasion quite complete 
unless they could have Betty Wales in their 
midst. 

Half-way to her office she was hailed by 
337 


BETTY WALES 


33 8 

President Wallace. “ You’ll be back next 
year, of course ? ” he asked. “ The Morton 
couldn’t do without you.” 

Betty blushed and laughed. “ I hoped I 
could escape without being asked that, be- 
cause I don’t know. Mother and father say 
they are all right, but I must look them over 
and be quite sure before I decide to leave 
them again.” 

“ Very well, only be quite sure also that we 
need you here,” the President told her, and 
Betty hurried on, thinking hard about the 
next year at Morton Hall. It would certainly 
be very nice, with the Mystery explained and 
happy, Miss Romance departed to make a 
home for her devoted suitor, the Digs be- 
ginning to appreciate the inherent reasonable- 
ness of obeying rules, the Thorn no longer 
prickly, and the Goop boarding with a married 
sister who had providentially come to live in 
Harding. 

“ I don’t believe her manners are worth 
the ruin of your disposition and mine,” Betty 
had told Mrs. Post, when, in June, the Goop 
had horrified the house by appearing at break- 
fast collarless and with unbuttoned shoes. 


ON THE CAMPUS 339 

Besides these improvements six seniors 
were leaving — rather dull, colorless girls, 
whose departure would make room for livelier, 
more promising material. Betty resolved 
that Morton Hall should be the gayest, j oiliest 
house on the campus — if she came back. 

Frisky Fenton was at the door of her office 
to meet her. She had been sitting on the 
stairs waiting. 

“ I'm going home this afternoon, Miss 
Wales," she said. “ I've taken all my pre- 
lims for Harding, and I hope I've passed 
most of them. Since I've been over here so 
much with you, I simply can't wait to get 
into college. Miss Wales, I’ve come to con- 
sult you for one last time. How shall I make 
my stepmother love me ? " 

Betty smiled into Frisky's melting brown 
eyes that were fixed upon her so earnestly. 
“ Didn't Miss Dwight advise you to puzzle 
that out for yourself, if you wanted to learn 
how to win over crowds of people later ? But 
I know how I should begin. Call her 
mother. It almost makes you love a person 
to call her that. And if you love her and try 
to please her " 


34 ° 


BETTY WALES 


“ I’ve thought of another thing to do,” 
Frisky took her up. “ I shall pretend she's 
like you. I’ve noticed that when people ex- 
pect a great deal of me — as you do, Miss 
Wales — I manage to come up to it. Perhaps 
if I expect my — mother to be like you — to 
understand and sympathize ” 

“ And scold hard too, sometimes,” laughed 
Betty. “ Don’t forget that part of me.” 

The girl whom Betty had picked out as a 
possible secretary to Jasper J. Morton opened 
the door, and Frisky held up her flower-like 
face to be kissed and went off, a mist in her 
eyes at the parting. The prospective secre- 
tary didn’t stay long ; if she hadn’t been 
a born “ rusher,” capable of getting through 
intricate discussions and momentous deci- 
sions in double-quick time, Betty would 
never have thought of recommending her. 
And then, with not time enough before 
her next appointment to begin on any- 
thing important, Betty drew out a sheet 
of paper and began drawing up rules, k la 
Madeline. 

“ If I come back next year,” she headed the 
page : 


ON THE CAMPUS 


34i 


“ Rule One — All ghosts whatsoever are 
tabooed. 

Rule Two — Boarding-schools need not 
apply for assistance. 

Rule Three — Matrons shall arrive on time 
and never be ill. 

Rule Four — In short, bothers, fusses, 
complications, mysteries, worries, and 
everything else that makes life ” 

Betty paused for an adjective, finally de- 
cided upon “ interesting,” and threw down 
her pen with a little laugh. “ That’s exactly 
it,” she thought. “ Work and bothering and 
planning are what make life worth living 
and bring the big things around your way. 
Some day Morton Hall will run itself, as the 

Tally-ho does. Until then Come in, 

Miss Smith. Yes, I have heard from that 
school. Can you get a reference for Latin? 
There is one first year class that this teacher 
may have to take. You failed in Livy? Oh, 
I am sorry, Miss Smith ! Yes, I understand ; 
it was when you were a freshman and never 
dreamed of having to teach. But the Latin 
department could hardly recommend you, 
could it ? Let me see what other places are 
vacant.” 


342 


BETTT WALES 


It was a long, busy morning — a thoroughly 
grown-up, responsible morning for the Small 
Person behind the Big Desk. Once she rushed 
to her window to see the Ivy procession wind 
its snowy, green-garlanded way past, and again 
she deserted her post to hear the Ivy Song 
and to watch the pretty picture the seniors 
made as they sang. But neither Babbie’s gay 
pleading, Mary Brooks’s mockery, nor Helen’s 
mournful sympathy could shake her purpose. 
She was going to “ tend up” to the business 
in hand, until it was done. It might be 
deliciously cool and as gay and amusing as 
possible down under the swaying elms. 19 — 
might be holding an “ experience meeting 
illustrated with tableaux, blue prints, and 
babies ” under the Hilton House birch tree. 

“ I can stand it to miss all that,” Betty 
confided to Mary Brooks, “ but if the after- 
noon people don’t come on time and don’t 
hurry through, so I can go on our own special 
picnic, I shall fairly weep on their shoulders.” 

So the last of the “ afternoon people ” — a 
leisurely freshman who had taken ten minutes 
to decide between two rooms in Morton Hall — 
was surprised to see the patient, dignified 


ON THE CAMPUS 343 

secretary of the Student’s Aid dart past her 
down the stairs, sprint, hatless, her curls 
flying, across the campus, and shriek wildly 
at a passing flat-car, which slowed up for a 
minute while a dozen willing hands caught 
the panting little secretary and pulled her up 
and on. 

It was a flat-car picnic, in memory of old 
days. There were ginger-cookies for Roberta, 
who ate an unbelievable number of them, and 
chocolate Eclairs for everybody, because on the 
sorrowful senior picnic there had been almost 
nothing else. This time there was bacon, 
sliced very thin, to toast on pointed sticks, 
rolls, some of Bridget’s delicious coffee keeping 
hot in thermos bottles, a huge chocolate cake, 
and dozens of little raisin pies — the Tally-ho’s 
very latest specialty. 

“ Where is Madeline? ” asked Betty, helping 
to start the fire. She had spent the trip out 
in catching her breath, cooling off, and bor- 
rowing hairpins to replace those lost in her 
flight. 

“ In the gym basement,” explained Christy, 
“ with Nita and Jean Eastman. They’re the 
costume committee for the aftermath parade, 


344 


BETTY WALES 


you know. They boasted that they had done 
themselves proud before they came up here, 
but this morning Madeline had a great 
thought and they've been hard at it all day. 
They may come out later for supper.” 

“ We promised to hang out a sign,” Rachel 
remembered, and borrowed Helen’s red 
sweater, which, tied by the sleeves to a 
sapling down near the fence, pointed un- 
erringly to the presence of picnickers on the 
hill. 

“ If you don’t send Mr. James Watson 
packing the minute the concert is out, you’ll 
miss the sensation of this commencement,” 
Madeline warned Betty solemnly when she 
arrived. There was a smudge of brown paint 
across her white linen skirt, and Nita declared 
feelingly that she would never make another 
pair of wings, no, not for any aftermath - 
parade that ever was. These were the only 
clues to the extra-special features that they 
had planned for the evening. 

At seven the returning flat-car halted by 
the fence, and the revelers went singing 
home to dress for the concert. 

“ Come to the gym basement for your cos- 


ON THE CAMPUS 345 

tume,” Nita whispered to Betty and K. 

“ Find me or Jean. Madeline is as likely as 
not to forget all about being there.” 

When Jim and Betty reached the campus it 
was gay with lanterns, and girls in evening 
dress and their escorts were everywhere. 

“ How about a hammock in a quiet spot ? ” 
suggested Jim. “ The music is prettiest from 
a distance, don’t you think ? ” 

Of course, all the hammocks were full long 
since, but the obliging Georgia Ames and three 
other footsore junior ushers politely vacated 
theirs, insisting that they were only resting 
for a minute, and Jim sat on the ground at 
Betty’s feet and inquired for her stage-struck 
friend, the cheery Mrs. Post, and the Morton » 
Hall-ites, and then for Betty’s summer 
schedule. 

“ I might be in Cleveland,” Jim announced 
tentatively. “ The firm is working on plans 
for two houses out there.” 

“ Then you could come out to the cottage 
for Sundays,” Betty said cheerily. “ Will 
would love to take you sailing. I hate to go 
in those bobbing little boats, so I stay on 
shore.” 


346 BETTT WALES 

" I'm not so very keen about sailing, either/' 
Jim said. 

“ Then I'm afraid you'd better not come/' 
Betty told him sweetly. “ Sailing and swim- 
ming are positively the only amusements out 
there." 

“ Except talking to you." 

“ Oh, I'm the family cook," Betty explained. 
“ If you think I'm busy here, you should see 
me bustle around in summer." 

“ I see." Jim changed the subject. “ Is 
Morton Hall to the queen’s taste since we 
fixed the linen rooms ? " 

“ Oh, yes, Jim," Betty assured him. “ It's 
a model — any amount nicer than the other 
campus houses." 

“ Thanks for the firm," Jim said, and then 
was quiet so long that Betty inquired laugh- 
ingly if he had been to the Bay of the Plosh- 
kin after his blues. 

“ Not yet," he told her. “ I’ve felt like it 
sometimes, but I was afraid I’d worn out 
your sympathy. I say, Betty, you’ll write to 
a fellow once in a while, won’t you ? And if 
I should come to Cleveland — doesn’t the 
family cook get her evenings off? " 


ON THE CAMPUS 347 

“ Some of them.” 

“ Betty, Betty, Betty Wales ! ” chanted an 
unseen chorus. “ Time to dress for the after- 
math parade ! ” 

So Jim said a hasty good-bye and waited 
under the group of elms that Betty had 
pointed out, to see 19 — march by. Some- 
body had suggested having a costumed pro- 
cession this year, and the seniors and half a 
dozen recently graduated classes had vied 
with one another in planning queer and effect- 
ive uniforms. There were masked classes, 
classes with red parasols, classes with purple 
sunbonnets and purple fans, classes with 
yellow caps and gowns. But 19 — ’s close- 
fitting green robes were lighted up by weird 
green torches, and in the middle of the ranks 
marched all the 19 — animals — the Jabber- 
wock, the Green Dragon, the Mock Turtle 
and the Gryphon from an Alice in Wonder- 
land show, ploshkins in assorted sizes with 
pink shoe-strings waving in their paws, and 
finally a little reckless ritherum hopping 
along in the rear. It jumped at the waving 
pink shoe-strings, it snatched a green lantern 
from the hands of a green-robed figure and 


BETTY WALES 


348 

charged with it blithely into the laughing 
crowd, and when it came to the elm trees 
where Jim was standing it darted straight at 
him and whispered, “ Good-bye again, Jim. 
Do manage to come to Cleveland sometimes 
and talk to the cook,” and was off again after 
a pink shoe-string before Jim had discovered 
what was happening to him. 

An hour later Betty shed her ritherum 
costume — it was rather warm, being composed 
of Georgia’s gym suit, the burlap that Lucille 
had bought to pack around her Morris chair, 
a peacock feather fan, and a pair of snow- 
shoes for wings — and she and Madeline, 
Roberta, Rachel, K., Nita, Helen, the B’s, and 
Christy went out on the fire-escape to cool off 
and watch the other classes coming home. 

“ Must be jolly to stay up here all the time,” 
said Nita hungrily. “ There’s always some- 
thing going on, and it’s all queer and dif- 
ferent and fun.” 

“ It’s a pretty good world, wherever you are, 
I think,” announced K. briskly. 

“ It’s whatever kind you make it,” Made- 
line amended K.’s sentiment. 

“ And we’re all making it something rather 


ON THE CAMPUS 349 

nice that it wouldn’t be, perhaps, without us,” 
Roberta added. 

“ We’ve never decided what it takes to 
make a B. C. A.,” said Madeline. “ If we had 
we could tell Nita, and she could cultivate the 
combination.” 

“ We shall have that left for conversation 
at the first tea-drinking next fall,” laughed 
Christy. “ There are always such dreadful 
pauses.” 

“ It’s always well to have something left 
for next fall just the same,” said little Helen 
primly. 

“ Yes,” agreed Rachel, who was secretly 
considering a year’s study in New York. 
“ There may be more of us B. C. A.’s and 
there may be less, but there’ll surely be a 
topic of conversation.” 

“ And an Object,” added Madeline, hug- 
ging Betty, “ with curls and a dimple, and a 
finger in everybody’s pie, and a few over.” 

“ Why, that’s just what Jim Watson said 
about me,” laughed Betty, “ only he didn’t 
call it pie.” 

“ Jim Watson,” said Madeline severely, “is 
politely requested to keep his distance. We 


35° 


BETTT WALES 


can't spare you to him — not for years and 
years and years to come." 

“ I should think not," echoed Christy, 
Rachel, and Helen in an indignant chorus. 

“ Girls, please stop talking such perfect 
nonsense," said Betty calmly. “ Let’s climb 
down the fire-escape and go to bed." 


Other Stories in this Series are : 

BETTY WALES, FRESHMAN 
BETTY WALES, SOPHOMORE 
BETTY WALES, JUNIOR 
BETTY WALES, SENIOR 
BETTY WALES, B. A. 

BETTY WALES & CO. 


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